Patent ID: 7480705

Claim:
A method of configuring a load balancer for dispatching client requests in a server farm comprising: initializing a load balancer by identifying to said load balancer, address information for a plurality of servers in a server farm; individually polling each of the plurality of servers by the load balancer so as to obtain a configuration file from each polled server if available, wherein: each obtained configuration file contains the parameters necessary to configure the load balancer for bringing the associated polled server on-line; and polling is implemented by repeating for each of said plurality of servers: selecting by said load balancer, a next one of said plurality of servers; sending a request across a corresponding network from said load balancer to said next one of said plurality of servers for a corresponding configuration file by specifying a predefined Uniform Resource Locator (URL) using a standard network protocol request, wherein the corresponding configuration file is stored in a local memory of said next one of said plurality of servers identified by the predefined Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and contains parameters including variables to be applied for configuring a load balancing scheme implemented by said load balancer; waiting for a reply from said next one of said plurality of servers; receiving either said corresponding configuration file formatted into a markup language supported by the load balancer or an error message from said next one of said plurality of servers; and validating parameters in said corresponding configuration file if received; and configuring a load balancing algorithm by said load balancer in accordance with said parameters that were read out of each corresponding configuration file.