Patent ID: 6360256
Filing Date: 2002-03-19
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
In a computer system adapted to offer a plurality of services to a plurality of client devices, the computer system including at least one name server and a plurality of hosts, each host adapted to offer at least one of the plurality of services, a method for automatically reconfiguring a workload among the plurality of hosts comprising the steps of:for each host, periodically determining by a Service Monitor executing on the host which, if any, of the offered services are available from the host; for each service determined to be available, sending by the Service Monitor executing on the host from which the service is available a broadcast message including a workload of the host and a list of host addresses for accessing the available service from the host; receiving, by a Name Binding Modifier, each broadcast message; for each service offered by the computer system, periodically compiling by the Name Binding Modifier a list of currently available host addresses received through the broadcast messages, and truncating said list of host addresses by the Name Binding Modifier in accordance with a set of predetermined criteria, wherein, in the step of truncating, entries having a workload value greater than a predetermined workload index are removed from the list of currently available host addresses; for each service offered by the computer system, updating a corresponding zone file in accordance with the information from the list of currently available host addresses associated with the service; and in response to a service request from one of the client devices, performing, by the name server, a load balancing operation in accordance with the updated zone file corresponding to the requested service.