Patent ID: 9699251
Date: 2017-07-04
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L

Claim:
1. A method for providing load balancing to a client node external to a clustered environment for storage management, comprising: identifying a clustered environment having a plurality of nodes, wherein at least some of the plurality of nodes comprise a controller virtual machine functioning as a storage controller for virtual machines hosted at respective nodes, the controller virtual machine working with other controller virtual machines to form a distributed system within the clustered environment to manage a storage pool comprising a plurality of storage resources spread across the at least some of the plurality of nodes; deploying a load balancing component at the client node, wherein the client node is external to the clustered environment and the client node hosts virtual machines; receiving I/O requests issued by the virtual machines hosted at the client node by the load balancing component; performing a hashing algorithm on content of the I/O requests by the load balancing component to identify one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment for handling the I/O requests; and dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment for storage management, wherein the load balancing component maintains metadata related to I/O requests issued by the virtual machines hosted at the client node, the metadata including information pertaining to which controller virtual machines at the clustered environment previously handled I/O requests for virtual machines hosted at the client node.