Patent ID: 7738452

Claim:
A method for distributing traffic from an end node to a service gateway on a packet switched network, comprising the steps of: receiving sticky table data that indicates an association between a particular subscriber and a particular service gateway, wherein the sticky table data is received at a loadbalancer router configured to distribute requests to a plurality of network nodes, the loadbalancer router being further configured to include a first virtual server for processing HTTP flows and a second virtual server for processing wireless application protocol (WAP) flows, and wherein if an incoming packet is not matched to a port for an HTTP flow or a WAP flow, then the incoming packet is routed using a routing table in the loadbalancer router; receiving a data plane input data packet with an input source address that indicates the particular subscriber, and an input transport-layer destination; determining the particular service gateway associated with the particular subscriber based on the sticky table, and directing an output data packet based on the input data packet to the particular service gateway, wherein a Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) is employed to convert between HTTP payloads and WAP payloads in providing a networking service.