Patent ID: 7047315

Claim:
A method of routing data from a client through one or more load-balancing routers to a selected load-balanced server among a plurality of servers in a network, the method comprising the steps of: receiving, at a load balancing node in a path from the client to the plurality of servers, a first packet of a request from a client; creating and storing a mapping of flow identifying information, associated with the first packet, to a client stickiness label; pushing the client stickiness label into a sending path list that is stored in association with the first packet; storing the client stickiness label in a mapping of client stickiness labels to server identifiers at a last load balancing node associated with the plurality of servers, wherein the mapping associates the client stickiness label with a server identifier that uniquely identifies a selected server that has been selected from among the plurality of servers to receive the client request; and forwarding all subsequent packets associated with the client request to the same selected server based on looking up the client stickiness label of such subsequent packets in the mapping.