Patent ID: 6856991

Claim:
A method of routing data from a client to a selected load-balanced server among a plurality of servers in a network that comprises a plurality of load-balancing nodes, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a first packet of a client request at one of the load-balancing nodes in the network; storing information identifying a flow associated with the first packet, an identifier of an interface of that node on which the first packet arrived, and an outgoing interface identifier; receiving a first packet of a server reply at a last node associated with a selected server among the plurality of servers; receiving one or more subsequent packets of the client request; receiving a label value; storing the label value in a load balancing mapping at the last node that associates the label with the flow and interface identifying information; and forwarding the subsequent packets to the selected server on a route that is defined by the load-balancing mapping and without hop-by-hop routing decisions.