Patent ID: 7926116

Claim:
A method for enabling decentralized dynamic load balancing among a plurality of appliances providing access to a plurality of sites, each site comprising a local area network and at least one service, the method comprising: (a) determining, by a first appliance, a first number of services executing on one or more servers managed over a first local area network by the first appliance; (b) receiving, by the first appliance from a second appliance, a communication indicating a second number of services executing on one or more servers managed over a second local area network by the second appliance; (c) receiving, by the first appliance, a plurality of requests to connect to a service; (d) determining, by the first appliance, responsive to a ratio between the first number of services executing on the one or more servers on the first local area network managed by the first appliance and the second number of services executing on the one or more servers on the second local area network managed by the second appliance, a weight to be assigned to the second appliance; and (e) forwarding, by the first appliance to the second appliance, one or more of the plurality of requests responsive to the weight assigned to the second appliance on the second local area network by the first appliance on the first local area network.