Patent ID: 8589473

Claim:
A method for handling initiation requests directed to a multi-homed contact host from a plurality of multi-homed clients, the initiation requests requesting initiation of data transfers between the plurality of multi-homed clients and a plurality of multi-homed servers, the method comprising the steps of: providing the contact host with a single IP address to accept requests from the plurality of multi-homed clients, allowing direct access to one of a plurality of multi-homed servers; receiving, by the contact host, a first initiation request using a streaming control transport protocol from a first one of the plurality of multi-homed clients; associating, by the contact host, the first initiation request with one of the multi-homed servers according to a round robin scheme; authenticating, by the contact host, the first initiation request; acknowledging, by the contact host, the first initiation request to initiate a data transfer directly between the first multi-homed client and the associated multi-homed server, the data transfer bypassing the contact host, wherein the contact host acknowledges the first initiation request directly to the corresponding first multi-homed client rather than the associated multi-homed server acknowledging the first initiation request; limiting request messaging transactions, handled by the contact host, to initiation of data transfer by sending a message to the client specifying the multi-homed server as recipient of further messages; and the contact host discarding any subsequent messages received by the contact host after commencing data transfer between the first multi-homed client and the associated multi-homed server, causing the first multi-homed client to classify the contact host as non-responsive and thereby prevent network overload.