Patent ID: 8879394

Claim:
A method to provide load balancing and routing for a plurality of end systems in a network, wherein the network contains at least one load balancer (LB) that balances traffic load across the plurality of end systems, the method comprising: receiving at the LB a request packet with Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) source and destination addresses specified, and wherein a source address is associated with a requesting correspondent node (CN) and a destination address is associated with a set of target end systems, and nonce information in the request packet indicates that the requesting CN is Identifier Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) capable; directing the request packet to a specific end system from the set of target end systems, wherein the set of target end systems is identifiable by the requesting CN by a load balanced address, wherein each target end system has a unique direct path locator prefix and a common ILNP identifier, and wherein the load balanced address is a single IPv6 address containing a common IPv6 locator prefix and the common ILNP identifier shared among the set of target end systems; overwriting the common IPv6 locator prefix of the destination address with the unique direct path locator prefix of the specific end system; forwarding the request packet to the specific end system; and notifying the requesting CN of the unique direct path locator prefix of the specific end system upon discovering an end system nonce for communication between the requesting CN and the specific end system.