Switch Load Balancing for Wireless Roaming Overload
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Solution Overview
Problem
In wireless network environments, the anchor switch often becomes overloaded due to continuous resource consumption when managing the point of presence for roaming wireless mobile client devices, leading to potential service disruptions and hardware resource depletion.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a load balancing mechanism where switches periodically monitor and share load information to dynamically transfer the point of presence responsibility from an overloaded anchor switch to a less loaded peer switch, allowing the overloaded switch to release resources and prevent service overload.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the anchor switch continues to advertise the wireless mobile device's point of presence in the wired network, then the device can maintain connectivity during roaming, but the anchor switch becomes overloaded and experiences resource depletion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the point of presence advertisement function from the anchor switch and transfers it to the foreign switch. When a mobile device roams from the anchor switch's wireless access point to the foreign switch's wireless access point, the foreign switch takes over the responsibility of advertising the device's point of presence in the wired network, relieving the anchor switch of this continuous resource-consuming task while maintaining connectivity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic role assignment where switches can transition between being anchor switches and foreign switches based on roaming events. The system dynamically adjusts which switch performs point of presence advertisement depending on the mobile device's current location, optimizing resource utilization across the network while ensuring continuous service availability.
2Reliability
If multiple switches serve as anchor switches for roaming devices, then service continuity is maintained, but load distribution becomes unbalanced causing some switches to be overloaded
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic role assignment where switches can transition between being anchor switches and foreign switches based on roaming events. The system dynamically adjusts which switch performs point of presence advertisement depending on the mobile device's current location, optimizing resource utilization across the network while ensuring continuous service availability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent establishes a feedback mechanism where switches monitor their own resource utilization levels and communicate this information to other switches in the network. This feedback enables load-aware decision-making, allowing the network to dynamically balance the distribution of anchor switch responsibilities based on current resource availability, preventing any single switch from becoming overloaded.
Data Source
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AI summary
Techniques are provided to load balance point of presence traffic for a group of network devices, such as switches (3,4-1), that are configured to support network connectivity in a wired network for client devices (2) that roam between wireless access points (11 -x, 12 - 1, 12 -y) served by the respective switches (3,4-1). The point of presence traffic may tend to be allocated to a particular switch (1-2) due to network topology, whereby the switch may be located at a building entrance and therefore receive the majority of new association requests for mobile devices entering the building. Load is monitored by each switch (3,4-1) and load information is exchanged (15,16) between the switches (3,4-1). Requests and responses are exchanged between the switches such that point of presence responsibility may be transferred to switches with a lighter load.