Patent ID: 7836187

Claim:
A network, comprising: a first server computer connected to the Internet and having an address resolution protocol cache; a plurality of second server computers connected to form a network with said first server computer, wherein said first server computer forwards a plurality of requests, received from the Internet, to respective ones of said plurality of second server computers; a program, running on said first server computer, said program performing the steps of: preparing a first table that contains, for each of said plurality of second server computers, an address and a respective counter; dumping said address resolution protocol cache to a cache dump; for each address in said cache dump, if said address in said cache dump matches an address in said first table, incrementing by one a respective counter; comparing said plurality of counters with each other to determine if a load imbalance between said second server computers is greater than a threshold value; if said load imbalance is greater than said threshold value, sending a message to an operator console regarding said load imbalance.