Patent ID: 9083709
Filing Date: 2015-07-14
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for virtual internet protocol (VIP) migration comprising: hosting active applications and serving one or more clients connected via a switch router over a network to one or more network gateways, the network gateways having a VIP address, connected to one or more servers, each server having its own locally unique IP address and being coupled to a network via the one or more network gateways; providing a first network gateway with a VIP address and configured to handle packet traffic for routing; providing a second network gateway with a VIP address and configured to handle packet traffic for routing; forwarding packet traffic from a client via the switch router to a VIP address of a network gateway, wherein the first network gateway processes the packet traffic and routes the packet traffic to the VIP address of a server such that the VIP address of first network gateway becomes a default VIP address for routing packet traffic between the server and the client; determining a VIP address migration criteria has been reached and the first network gateway inserting a default flow entry into the VIP address such that new packet traffic to the default VIP address is forwarded to the second network gateway, wherein the first network gateway continues processing pre-existing packet traffic until processing of the pre-existing packet traffic is complete, and wherein the second network gateway processes new packet traffic in parallel to the pre-existing packet traffic processing on the first network gateway; and assuming ownership of the VIP address by the second network gateway by advertising ownership using a gratuitous ARP (IPv4) or Neighbor Advertisement (IPv6) broadcast wherein if the first network gateway determines no pre-existing packet traffic exists with it, the second network gateway is instructed to take ownership of the VIP address for packet routing.