Patent ID: 7340744
Filing Date: 2008-03-04
Classification: H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for loadbalancing in a network environment, comprising: a loadbalancer operable to receive a create request from an end user for a communications link provided by a network node and to communicate a response to the end user in order to establish a communication session, the loadbalancer identifying a selected one of a plurality of network nodes to facilitate the communication session, wherein the identification of the selected network node is achieved through binding of a session identifier associated with the end user to the selected network node, whereby a subsequent create request is received and correlated to the session identifier in order to forward the subsequent create request to the same selected network node, feedback information being received from the selected network node, which allows resources associated with the end user to be cleaned up, and wherein multiple flows are tracked for the end user such that when a server terminates one of the multiple flows, an explicit message is received and the tracking is updated; wherein the loadbalancer is further operable to bind the session identifier associated with the end user to multiple flows associated with the end user; and wherein the binding is accomplished by parsing a GPRS tunneling protocol (GTP) control stream and building a persistent sticky object that can be accessed by the loadbalancer.