Load balancing service

Abstract

A load balancing service for a plurality of customers performs load balancing among a plurality of customer Web servers. Requests for Web content are load balanced across the customer Web servers. The load balancing service provider charges a fee to the customers for the load balancing service. A caching service is also provided that comprises a plurality of caching servers connected to a network. The caching servers host customer content that can be cached and stored, e.g., images, video, text, and / or software. The caching servers respond to requests for Web content from clients. The load balancing service provider charges a fee to the customers for the Web caching service

Description

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 644,108 filed Dec. 21, 2006 (Attorney Docket No. 60095-0082), which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 7,155,723 B1 issued on Dec. 26, 2006 (Attorney Docket No. 60095-0054), which is a continuation of Ser. No. 09 / 909,711 filed Jul. 19, 2001 (Attorney Docket No. 60095-0024), which is further a continuation in part of U.S. Pat. No. 6,405,252 B1 filed Aug. 23, 2000 (Attorney Docket No. 60095-0015), and also claims priority to and incorporates by reference for all purposes, Provisional U.S. Patent Application Ser. Nos. 60 / 219,172, 60 / 219,166, 60 / 219,946, and 60 / 219,177 all filed on Jul. 19, 2000, and is related to U.S. Pat. No. 6,754,706 B1, issued on Jun. 22, 2004, U.S. Pat. No. 6,754,699 B2, issued on Jun. 22, 2004, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,058,706 B1, issued on Jun. 6, 2006.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Technical Field[0003]The invention relates to world wid...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010]An embodiment provides a load balancing service. The system provides DNS servers useful information to effectively perform load balancing. In addition, the invention provides performance metrics that allow DNS servers to select the proper content servers for clients.

[0017]To reduce the memory requirements and network traffic, the entire Internet address space is broken up into multiple zones. Each zone is assigned to a group of caching servers. If a caching server gets a request from a client that is not in the zone assigned to that caching server, it forwards the request to the caching server assigned to that zone. The caching servers need to keep latency and persistence information for the clients that fall in the zone assigned to the server. The latency probes only send the client latency information back to the caching servers responsible for that client.

Problems solved by technology

It is an extremely diffuse and complex system over where no single entity has complete authority or control.

Like automobiles during “rush hour” on Highway 101 in Silicon Valley, the tiny packets of information traveling through the Internet become congested.

Here, traffic jams which cause a delay in the information from the server to the client occur during high usage hours on the Internet.

These traffic jams lead to long wait times at the client location.

Here, a user of the client computer may wait for a long time for a graphical object to load onto his / her computer.

Images