Patent ID: 7581009

Claim:
A method of performing load balancing using a load balancing switch, the method comprising: storing, at the load balancing switch, performance metrics regarding a plurality of site switches, each site switch associated with one or more host servers, wherein the one or more host servers associated with a site switch are reachable via the site switch using a virtual address configured at the site switch and wherein the performance metrics regarding a site switch comprise one or more metrics related to one or more host servers associated with the site switch; storing, at the load balancing switch, a plurality of network addresses generated in response to a domain name query; ordering the plurality of network addresses at the load balancing switch based upon a first set of performance metrics from the stored performance metrics to generate a first ordered list of network addresses; determining if a single network address tops the first ordered list generated based upon the first set of performance metrics; and upon determining that a single network address does not top the first ordered list, reordering, at the load balancing switch, one or more network addresses from the plurality of network addresses based upon a second set of performance metrics from the stored performance metrics, wherein the second set of performance metrics is different from the first set of performance metrics.