Patent ID: 8438240

Claim:
A method in a proxy server of a cloud-based proxy service, comprising: receiving, from a client, a first packet that includes a first incoming request for an action to be performed on an identified resource, wherein the first packet is received at the proxy server as a result of a Domain Name System (DNS) request for a domain corresponding to the identified resource resolving to an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the proxy server; selecting a first one of a plurality of IP addresses of a same protocol type of the proxy server for use as a source IP address for a second packet that carries an outgoing request, wherein the step of selecting is based at least in part on a set of one or more parameters associated with the first packet, and wherein the selected first one of the plurality of IP addresses is a least recently used IP address of the plurality of IP addresses for a destination origin server; transmitting a second packet that includes a first outgoing request to the destination origin server that hosts the identified resource, wherein the first outgoing request is based on the first incoming request, wherein the second packet includes the selected first IP address as the source IP address of the second packet; receiving a third packet that includes a first incoming response from the destination origin server in response to the first outgoing request; and transmitting a fourth packet to the client, the fourth packet including a first outgoing response that is based on the first incoming response.