Appeal 2007-1099
Application 09/955,469
THE INVENTION
The disclosed invention relates generally to server-based software
applications that involve latency-sensitive message traffic over a packet-
switched network such as the Internet (Specification 1). More particularly,
the disclosed invention provides load balancing among similarly functioning
software applications residing on parallel servers, while avoiding the
problem of a load-balancing device becoming a bottleneck for message
traffic from users to the servers. The disclosed invention also provides fault
tolerance methods for these types of server-based software applications
(Specification 3).
Independent claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method of providing a remote networked computer with a
service session using one of a plurality of similarly functioning software
applications residing on different servers with different unique real network
addresses, the method comprising:
receiving, from the remote computer and at a device having a unique
network address that is different from the network address of any of the
servers, a packet-based message comprising a request for a service session;
assigning one of the several servers to be used by the remote computer
in the service session; and
transmitting, to the remote computer, a packet-based message
comprising the unique real network address of the assigned server for the
remote user to address subsequent messages during the service session.
2
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