Patent ID: 9667595
Date: 2017-05-30
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method, comprising: maintaining for each specific public address of a plurality of public addresses a reachability status level based on prior usage of said specific public address being used as a mapped private address of one or more internal clients to communicate with one or more external destinations through a network address translation device providing mappings between public addresses of the plurality of public address and private addresses of said internal clients, with said internal clients being located on the private side of the network address translation device and said external destinations being on the public side of the network address translation device; and in response to the network address translation device receiving a particular packet including a particular private address of a particular internal client with the particular private address not currently associated with one of the plurality of public addresses, selectively assigning a particular public address of the plurality of public addresses to be mapped with the particular private address of the particular internal client by the network address translation device based on the reachability status level of addresses of the plurality of public addresses and using the particular private address and the particular public address in communicating packets between the particular internal client and one or more of particular external destinations through the network address translation device; wherein the reachability status level refers to a current measure of an ability to reach an intended one or more destinations over a period of time.