Patent ID: 7778220
Filing Date: 2010-08-17
Classification: H04W

Abstract:
1. In a mobile network comprising a plurality of mobile nodes and a plurality of home agents serving a prefix, a home agent comprising: a response mechanism adapted to receive a home agent address discovery request from at least one of the plurality of mobile nodes and to return the address of a selected one of the plurality of home agents, wherein an address corresponds to the least loaded home agent among the plurality of home agents serving the prefix; and a load balancing mechanism adapted to acquire, from other home agents serving the prefix, information related to each of the other home agents loading, wherein the load balancing mechanism determines a load factor that is calculated using a load factor generation algorithm and based on the calculated load factor, dynamically ranks the home agents serving a prefix to identify the least loaded home agent, wherein the load factor is calculated using an equation: Load Factor=(Load on the home agent−Load on a least loaded home agent)/(Load on a highest loaded home agent−Load on the least loaded home agent).