Patent ID: 7051115

Claim:
A method of providing a single system image in a clustered environment comprising: (a) assigning an internet protocol (IP) address as a cluster IP address; (b) binding the cluster IP address to a node in a cluster; (c) receiving a client request directed to the cluster IP address; (d) multicasting the request to all nodes in the cluster; (e) each node in the cluster filtering the request based on a dynamically adjustable workload distribution function on each node, wherein the function is configured to allow a single node to process the client request, and wherein the function distributes the workload by: (i) representing a total workload observed by the cluster as a bitmap with a number of bits k; (ii) obtaining a bit m by performing a mod operation of a source IP address of the client by the number of bits k; and (iii) assigning the client request to a cluster node that has a specified value at bit m; (f) a single node in the cluster obtaining a response to the request; (g) the single node inserting a cluster media access control (MAC) address into the response; and (h) sending the response from the single node to the client.