Patent ID: 7016685

Claim:
In connection with a telecommunications switch having a switching fabric through which calls are switched, and with a plurality of processing nodes each capable of performing certain processing in connection with calls to be routed through the switching fabric, a method of dynamically balancing call processing tasks among the plurality of call processing nodes, comprising: periodically updating a respective node processing occupancy value at each of the plurality of call processing nodes; communicating the respective node occupancy value of each call processing node to at least one work originator node operable to receive incoming calls; storing the node occupancy values of the plurality of call processing nodes at the at least one work originator node; and selecting, by the at least one work originator node, a call processing node to process the incoming call in response to the node occupancy values of the call processing nodes; wherein selecting a call processing node comprises: determining a subset of call processing nodes having lowest node occupancy values; and randomly selecting a call processing node from the subset.