US l46al (19) United States (12) Patent Application Publication (10) Pub. No.: US 2009/ A1 Albert et al.

Transcription

1 US A (19) United States (12) Patent Appication Pubication (10) Pub. No.: US 2009/ A1 Abert et a. (43) Pub. Date: Ju. 30, 2009 (54) UTLZNG VRTUAL SERVER WEGHT FOR (22) Fied: Jan. 24, 2008 LOADBALANCNG Pubication Cassi?cation (75) nventors: Mark Abert, Cary, NC (US); Chris O Rourke, Apex, NC (US); (51) nt' C' G06F 15/173 ( ) Senthi Kumar Pandian, rvine, CA (US) Correspondence Address: BAKER BOTTS L.L.P ROSS AVENUE, SUTE 600 DALLAS, TX (US) (73) Assignee: Cisco Technoogy, nc., San Jose, CA (US) (21) App. No.: 12/019,119 (57) ABSTRACT 709/241 n one embodiment, a method incudes receiving current Weight data from one or more hosts associated With a virtua server and con?guring a maximum Weight of the virtua server. The method incudes communicating the sum of the current Weight data from a of the hosts to a goba oadba ancer and communicating the maximum Weight of the virtua server to the goba oadbaancer. VRTUAL SERVER 10\ L 2 \ END USER 20 COMMUNCATON NETWORK MW \ _wm B G A L E wan ADC R _ _ r._..._ woo m5 _ ME A. MM ENW/(% AM ENW/m CA WAL 6 EN 0 O N WM? w? w? 1% \w 1m \m \_v v TRT a TWT AH _m AE n m DR T D H 1U, _R E _ T _V V H S _$ H 0 O 000 M0 : _O _/ 7 _ a b n

2 Patent Appication Pubication Ju. 30, 2009 Sheet 1 0f 3 US 2009/ A1 40a _ j ' VRTUAL server f 7021 : LOCAL LOAD HOST : : BALANCER HOS / 70b : WEGHT T _: MANAGER 0 : ELEMENT : c / 60a HOsT 70D 10 \ \ 503 L - -._ J - _ - _' 1 VRTUAL server / 70a ' : LOCAL LOAD HOST : : BALANOER / 70b \ \ WEGHT HOST _ MANAGER 0 END COMMUNCATON GtgEgL _ : ELEMENT o USER NETWORK BALANCER : / : 60b HOST \ \ 70D L 50b _: FG. 1 o _ K ' 40b O - - _ _ '_' vrtual server ' / 70a ' : LOOAL LOAD HOST : : BALANCER / 70b : WEGHT HOST _: MANAGER 0 i ELEMENT : o / L 60n HOST \ \ Tom 50D

3 Patent Appication Pubication Ju. 30, 2009 Sheet 2 0f 3 US 2009/ A1 CURRENT WEGHT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT OF VRTUAL = WEGHT OF + WEGHT OF WEGHT 0F server 82 HOST 70a HOST 70b HOST 70n H$?gSA F _ CURRENT WEGHT OF VRTUAL server 82 SERVER 86 MAXMUM WEGHT OF VRTUAL SERVER 84 FG. 2

4 Patent Appication Pubication Ju. 30, 2009 Sheet 3 0f 3 US 2009/ A1 O0\ END USER ENTERS THE URL, NTO A WEB BROWSER 102\ END USER SENDS DNS REQUEST TO DNS SERVER TO RESOLVE THE DOMAN NAME, TO AN P ADDRESS 104 WEGHT MANAGER ELEMENT LOCATED N LOCAL \ LOAD BALANCER MAY BE CONFGURED TO NCLUDE THE MAXMUM WEGHT OF VRTUAL SERVER WEGHT MANAGER ELEMENT MAY DETERMNE THE CURRENT O6\ WEGHT OF ENTRE DATACENTER FROM THE SUMMATON OF THE CURRENT WEGHT OF EACH HOST WTHN DATACENTER WEGHT MANAGER ELEMENT MAY DETERMNE O8\ HEALTH OF VRTUAL SERVER BY DVDNG THE CURRENT WEGHT OF VRTUAL SERVER BY THE MAXMUM WEGHT OF VRTUAL SERVER LOCAL LOAD BALANCER ASSOCATED WTH EACH DATACENTER MAY TRANSMT THE MAXMUM WEGHT, THE CURRENT WEGHT, AND THE HEALTH 110/ OF THE DATACENTER TO A GLOBAL LOAD BALANCER, SUCH AS A DNS LOAD BALANCER DNS LOAD BALANCER RECEVES DATA ASSOCATED WTH 112/ EACH P ADDRESS ASSOCATED WTH EACH DATACENTER DNS LOAD BALANCER MAY DETERMNE WHCH P ADDRESS ASSOCATED WTH A PARTCULAR DATACENTER WLL HAVE THE FASTEST RESULT FOR END USER. THS DECSON MAY / BE BASED ON THE MAXMUM WEGHT OF DATACENTER, THE 114 CURRENT WEGHT OF DATACENTER, THE HEALTH OF DATACENTER, PNG TME, ROUND TRP TME, AND RELATvE DSTANCE OF END USER TO DATACENTER END USER'S HTTP REQUEST S SENT TO P ADDRESS OF 116/ DATACENTER DETERMNED BY THE DNS LOAD BALANCER FG. 3

5 Ju. 30, 2009 UTLZNG VRTUAL SERVER WEGHT FOR LOADBALANCNG TECHNCAL FELD [0001] The present discosure reates generay to oadba ancing. BACKGROUND [0002] Networking architectures have grown increasingy compex in communications environments. n addition, the augmentation of cients or end users Wishing to communicate in a network environment has caused many networking con?gurations and systems to respond by adding eements to accommodate the increase in networking tra?ic. [0003] As the subscriber base of end users increases, the need for executing proper oadbaancing techniques becomes more prevaent. n cases Where inef?cient oadbaancing techniques are executed, certain network components may be overwhemed Whie other (potentiay more capabe) network resources remain untapped. This overburdening may decrease throughput and inhibit the How of network traf?c, causing congestion, inef?cient use of computing recourses or bottenecks in the system. Additionay, the overwheming burden on a singe eement in the communications How may decrease bandwidth capabiities and inhibit the abiity to accommodate additiona communications tunnes or end users. BREF DESCRPTON OF THE DRAWNGS [0004] FG. 1 iustrates an exampe system for utiizing tota Weights of hosts to determine tota vserver capacity for oadbaancing; [0005] FG. 2 iustrates a simpi?ed bock diagram for utiizing tota Weights of hosts to determine tota vserver capacity for oadbaancing; and [0006] FG. 3 iustrates an exampe method utiizing tota Weights of hosts to determine tota vserver capacity for oad baancing. DESCRPTON OF EXAMPLE EMBODMENTS [0007] OvervieW [0008] n one embodiment, a method incudes receiving current Weight data from one or more hosts associated With a virtua server and con?guring a maximum Weight of the vir tua server. The method incudes communicating the sum of the current Weight data from a of the hosts to a goba oadbaancer and communicating the maximum Weight of the virtua server to the goba oadbaancer. [0009] Description [0010] FG. 1 is a simpi?ed bock diagram ofa communi cation system 10 for utiizing tota Weights of hosts to deter mine tota vserver capacity for oadbaancing. Communica tion system 10 incudes an end user 12, a communication network 20, a goba oadbaancer 30, and a virtua server 40 (i.e., a set of virtua servers ). Virtua server 40 may incude oca oadbaancer 50 (i.e., a set of oca oadbaancers ) and one or more hosts 70 (i.e., a set of hosts ). Loca oadbaancer 50 may incude a Weight manager ee ment 60 (i.e., a set of Weight manager eements ). [0011] n accordance With the teachings of the present dis cosure, Weight manager eement 60 aows network operator to con?gure the maximum Weight of virtua server 40, such that the maximum Weight represents the summation of the tota Weight of a hosts 70 Within a given virtua server 40. Weight may represent a metric, such as the host s capacity to hande more connections and/or to process more Work. Weight manager eement 60 may utiize agorithms to cacu ate the heath of virtua server 86. n one embodiment, heath of virtua server may be the quotient of the current Weight of virtua divided by the maximum Weight of virtua server. n one embodiment, heath of virtua server may be the quotient of the number of active serving hosts divided by the tota number of provisioned hosts. The maximum Weight of the virtua server and the heath of the virtua server are commu nicated to goba oadbaancer 30. Therefore, the decisions by goba oadbaancer 30 of how to distribute Work are in?u enced by the maximum Weight of virtua server 40 and the heath of the virtua server 40, such that goba oadbaancer 30 can send requests to virtua server 40 that has more avai abe capacity than another virtua server 40. [0012] n operation of an exampe embodiment, end user 12 is ocated in Arizona and attempts to connect to com. This DNS request is sent to goba oadbaancer 30. Goba oadbaancer 30 utiizes an agorithm to determine Which P address to direct end user s request based on one or more factors, such as round trip time, maximum Weight, and heath of s data centers. For exampe and for purposes of expanation ony, may have two data centers 40 associated With its domain name, such as virtua server A and virtua server B. Virtua server A is ocated in Caifornia and virtua server B is ocated in NeW York. Virtua server A has one server operating at eighty percent capacity With a Weight often. Virtua server B has?fty servers, such that each server is operating at eighty percent capacity With a Weight of ten. Weight manager eement 60 of virtua server A may be con?gured to show a tota Weight of ten. Weight manager eement 60 of virtua server B may be con?gured to show a tota Weight of?ve hundred. Goba oadbaancer 30 agorithm may determine Which virtua server 40 to send a request based on severa factors, such as round trip time of a request to virtua servers A and B, heath of virtua servers A and B, and tota Weight of virtua servers A and B. Without Weight manager eement 60, goba oad baancer agorithm cannot utiize the tota Weight of virtua server 40, Which is an important factor in determining how to distribute requests. Goba oadbaancer agorithm may deter mine to send a request to virtua server B even if it is not as heathy as virtua servera because virtua server B has a much higher maximum Weight than virtua server A. Loca oadba ancer 50 Within virtua server B may distribute a request to a host based on current Weights determined by a server feed back protoco, such as a Dynamic Feedback Protoco. [0013] End user 12 may be a cient, customer, entity, source, or object seeking to initiate network communication in communication system 10 via communication network 20. End user 12 may be incusive of devices used to initiate a communication, such as a computer, a persona digita assis tant (PDA), a aptop or an eectronic notebook, a teephone, a mobie station, or any other device, component, eement, or object capabe of initiating voice or data exchanges Within communication system 10. End user 12 may aso be incusive of a suitabe interface to the human user, such as a micro phone, a dispay, a keyboard, or other termina equipment (such as for exampe an interface to a persona computer or to a facsimie machine in cases Where end user 12 is used as a modem). End user 12 may aso be any device that seeks to initiate a communication on behaf of another entity or ee

6 Ju. 30, 2009 ment, such as a program, a database, or any other component, device, eement, or object capabe of initiating a voice or a data exchange Within communication system 10. Data, as used herein in this document, refers to any type of packet, numeric, voice, video, graphic, or script data, or any type of source or object code, or any other suitabe information in any appropriate format that may be communicated from one point to another. [0014] System 10 incudes a communication network 20. n genera, communication network 20 may comprise at east a portion of a pubic switched teephone network (PSTN), a pubic or private data network, a oca area network (LAN), a metropoitan area network (MAN), a Wide area network (WAN), a oca, regiona, or goba communication or com puter network such as the nternet, a Wireine or Wireess network, an enterprise intranet, other suitabe communication inks, or any combination of any of the preceding. Commu nication network 20 may impement any suitabe communi cation protoco for transmitting and receiving data or infor mation Within communication system 10. [0015] Loadbaancer 30, 50 may be goba oadbaancer 30 or oca oadbaancer 50. Loadbaancers 30, 50 are eements or devices that receive requests and distribute those requests to the next avaiabe server or node. The server or node may be any host, computer, or device on a network that manages network resources or that processes data, such as virtua serv ers 40 and hosts 70. n one exampe, the next avaiabe server or node may be another oadbaancer 30, 50. Loadbaancing decisions may be executed based on suitabe agorithms, soft Ware, or hardware provided in oadbaancer 30, 50. Loadba ancer 30, 50 may aso incude hardware and/or software for directing signaing and data information in communication system 10. HardWare Within a switch fabric of oadbaancer 30, 50 may operate to direct information based on P address data provided in the communication?ows. Software Within oadbaancer 26 may propery accommodate a signaing path Way for transmissions associated With end user 12 and seected virtua servers or hosts. [0016] Loadbaancer 30, 50 may aso perform other suit abe oadbaancing tasks, such as dividing the amount of Work that an eement has to do between two or more eements to ensure more Work gets done in the same amount of time and, in genera, accommodating end users 12 more quicky. Load baancer 30, 50 may be repaced by any other suitabe net Work eement such as a router, a switch, a bridge, a gateway, or any other suitabe eement, component, device, or object operabe to faciitate data reception or transmission in a net Work environment. Additionay, oadbaancer 30, 50 may incude any appropriate hardware, software, (or a combina tion of both) or any appropriate component, device, eement, or object that suitaby assists or faciitates traf?c management in a network. The operation of oadbaancer 30, 50 may further aeviate strain that is paced on virtua servers 40 and hosts 70 that continue to receive requests that they are inca pabe of accommodating. [0017] Loadbaancers 30, 50 may support a Dynamic Feed back Protoco (DFP). DFP aows host 70 to communicate a metric identifying the Weight or capacity of host 70. The oadbaancer 30, 50 and/ or Weight manager eement may use this metric of a host s Weight to determine how much addi tiona processing host 70 can support. DFP Weights of host 70 may be compared to other Weights of hosts Within a server farm since the DFP Weights may be reative to other hosts 70 Within virtua server 40. [0018] Goba oadbaancer 30 may do geographic oadba ancing across mutipe virtua servers, such as Domain Name System (DNS) oadbaancers. n one particuar embodiment, When end user 12 makes a DNS request, goba oadbaancer 30 utiizes an agorithm to determine Which virtua server 40 shoud hande the DNS request. Such agorithms may inte igenty use severa factors, such as round trip time and Weight metrics of virtua server. Weight metrics of virtua server may incude maximum Weight of virtua server, current Weight of virtua server, heath of virtua server, or any appropriate metric. As iustrated beow, Weight manager eement 60 may communicate these Weight metrics, incuding the maximum Weight of virtua server to goba oadbaancer 30, such that goba oadbaancer 30 can make better decisions as to Which virtua server 40 shoud receive the current request. There fore, goba oadbaancing agorithms may now utiize virtua server s maximum Weight, current Weight, and/or heath. [0019] Virtua server 40 may represent a server farm or data center of hosts that can perform Work. Virtua server 40 may use a singe P address to represent oca oadbaancer 50 and hosts 70. Virtua server 40 may communicate as host 70 to goba oad baancer 30, such that virtua server communi cates its Weight to goba oadbaancer. [0020] Loca oadbaancer 50 may act as a manager by receiving DFP Weights and as an agent by communicating DFP Weights to goba oadbaancer 30. As an agent, oca oadbaancer 50 is represented as a host to goba oadba ancer 30. Loca oadbaancer 50 provides Weights represent ing capacity of virtua server 40. As discussed beow, Weight manager eement 60 may be ocated in oca oadbaancer 50 and Weight manager eement may be con?gured With a maxi mum Weight of a hosts 70 Within virtua server 40, such that more detaied information of virtua server Weight is commu nicated to goba oadbaancer 30. As a manager, oca oad baancer 50 utiizes an agorithm to determine how to distrib ute requests to hosts 70 based on factors, such as DFP Weights. [0021] Weight manager eement 60 is an eement that aows a network operator to con?gure the maximum Weight of virtua server 40, such that the maximum Weight represents the summation of the tota Weight of a hosts 70 Within virtua server. Weight may represent a metric, such as host s capacity to hande more connections and process more Work. Weight manager eement 60 may track the tota host Weights. Weight manager eement 60 may aso utiize agorithms to cacuate the current Weight of virtua server 40 and/or the heath of virtua server 40. The current Weight of a host may be a metric that identi?es how much Weight the host is currenty process ing. The tota Weight of a host may be a metric that identi?es how much tota Weight the host can process. For exampe, a host that does not have any requests may have a current Weight of Zero, and a host that has one or more requests may have a metric greater than Zero for the current Weight. The host can not process more Weight than its tota Weight. As the current Weight of each hosts increase or decrease, the current Weight of virtua server may increase or decrease accordingy. Weight manager eement may determine the current Weight of virtua server. This metric of the current Weight of virtua server is expained in more detai beow in FG. 2. Weight manager eement may communicate the maximum Weight of virtua server, the current Weight of virtua server, and/ or the heath of virtua server. [0022] n an aternative embodiment, heath of virtua server 40 may be the tota number of active serving hosts 70

7 Ju. 30, 2009 divided by the tota number of provisioned hosts 70. Weight manager eement 60 may communicate the current heath of virtua server 40 to goba oadbaancer 30. Additionay, Weight manager eement 60 may communicate the maximum Weight of virtua server 40 to goba oadbaancer 30. [0023] The maximum Weight of virtua server 40 may be con?gured by network operator. Goba oadbaancer 30 may receive a maximum Weight of virtua server 40. Additionay, goba oadbaancer may receive the current Weight of virtua server 40 and/or the heath of virtua server 40. Goba oad baancer 30 may normaize the heath of virtua server by appropriatey scaing this metric With the maximum capacity of virtua server 40. Therefore, decisions by goba oadba ancer 30 of how to distribute Work are in?uenced by the maximum Weight of a hosts 70 ocated Within virtua server 40, such that goba oadbaancer 30 may send requests to virtua server 40 that has more avaiabe capacity than another virtua server 40. As discussed beow in FG. 2, Weight man ager eement 60 may utiize severa agorithms to determine an appropriate metric. [0024] Weight manager eement 60 aows network opera tors to impement data centers that are not identica to one another. Without utiizing the maximum Weight of a virtua server con?gured in Weight manager eement 60, goba oad baancer 30 may treat one hundred hosts With?fty percent capacity represented by virtua servera identicay to a singe host With?fty percent oad represented by virtua server B because the oads are not scaed to appropriatey identify the tota capacity. After Weight manager eement 40 communi cates the maximum Weight of virtua server With the current Weight and/or heath of virtua server, then goba oadba ancer 30 may determine that virtua server A is a better des tination to process the request because virtua server A has much more capacity than virtua server B. [0025] t is critica to note that oadbaancers 30, 50 and Weight manager eement 60 may incude any suitabe ee ments, hardware, software, objects, or components capabe of effectuating their operations or additiona operations Where appropriate. The software coud incude code such that When executed is operabe to perform the functions outined herein. Additionay, any one or more of the eements incuded in oadbaancers 30, 50 and Weight manager eement 60 may be provided in an externa structure or combined into a singe modue or device Where appropriate. Moreover, any of the functions provided by oadbaancers 30, 50 and Weight man ager eement may be offered in a singe unit or singe func tionaities may be arbitrariy swapped between oadbaancers 30, 50 and Weight manager eement 60. The embodiment offered in FG. 1 has been provided for purposes of exampe ony. The arrangement of eements (and their associated operation(s)) may be recon?gured signi?canty in any other appropriate manner in accordance With the teachings of the present discosure. [0026] System incudes hosts 70, such that hosts are rea servers. Hosts 70 may communicate current Weight to oca oadbaancers by DFP. n one embodiment, one or more hosts 70 may be physicay distributed such that each host 70, or mutipe instances of each host 70, may be ocated in a dif ferent physica ocation geographicay remote from each other. n other embodiments, one or more hosts may be com bined and/or integra to each other. One or more hosts 70 may be impemented using a genera-purpose persona computer (PC), a Macintosh, a Workstation, a UNX-based computer, a server computer, or any other suitabe processing device. Hosts 70 may further comprise a memory. The memory may take the form of voatie or non-voatie memory incuding, Without imitation, magnetic media, optica media, random access memory (RAM), read-ony memory (ROM), remov abe media, or any other suitabe oca or remote memory component. [0027] FG. 2 iustrates a simpi?ed bock diagram utiiz ing tota Weights of hosts to determine tota vserver capacity for oadbaancing in accordance With one embodiment of the present discosure. Severa different agorithms may be used by Weight manager eement 60 to determine one or more appropriate metrics to communicate to goba oadbaancer 30. The foowing agorithms are for exampe and discussion ony. Accordingy, Weight manager eement 60 is not imited to the agorithms isted beow. The current Weight of virtua server 82 may be obtained by summation of the current Weight of a hosts Within virtua server. Maximum Weight of virtua server 84 may be con?gured by network operator. Heath of virtua server 86 may be obtained by division of current Weight of virtua server 82 by maximum Weight of virtua server 84. Additionay, Weight manager eement 60 may communicate the current Weight 82, maximum Weight 84, and heath of virtua server 86 to goba oadbaancer 30, such that goba oadbaancer 30 scaes the Weights of each virtua server 40 appropriatey. n an aternative embodiment, heath of virtua server 40 may be the quotient of the tota number of active serving hosts 70 divided by the tota number of provisioned hosts 70. [0028] n an exampe embodiment, virtua server 40 incudes four hosts: host1 With 10 maximum Weight, host2 With 20 maximum Weight, host3 With 30 maximum Weight, and host4 With 40 maximum Weight. Operator of virtua server may have knowedge of each host s maximum Weight, and the operator may con?gure the tota maximum Weight of virtua server to one hundred. Whie processing end user requests, the four hosts may report current Weights using DFP, such that host1 has 5 current Weight, host2 has 10 current Weight, host3 has 20 current Weight, and host 4 has 25 current Weight. Weight manager eement 60 may compute that the virtua server is at 60% capacity by dividing the sum of the current Weights, sixty, by the maximum con?gured Weight of one hundred. Assuming no other constraints on capacity, goba oadbaancer 30 may receive data indicating that heath of virtua server 40 is 60%, such that virtua server is at 60% capacity out of a maximum capacity of one hundred. [0029] FG. 3 iustrates an exampe method for utiizing tota Weights of hosts to determine tota vserver capacity for oadbaancing in accordance With one embodiment of the present discosure. The?owchart may begin at step 100 When end user 12 enters the URL, into a Web browser. [0030] At step 102, end user 12 sends DNS request to DNS server to resove the domain name, to an P address. Each P address is associated With different data centers ocated in different geographic areas in the country. Each datacenter is represented as a virtua server, Which incudes oca oadbaancer and hosts. [0031] At step 104, Weight manager eement ocated in oca oadbaancer may be con?gured to incude the maxi mum Weight of virtua server. At step 106, Weight manager eement may determine the current Weight of the entire data center from the summation of the current Weights of each host Within the datacenter. Current Weights of each host may be determined by a server feedback protoco, such as a Dynamic

8 Ju. 30, 2009 Feedback Protoco. At step 108, Weight manager eement 60 may determine the heath of the virtua server by dividing the current Weight of the virtua server by the maximum Weight of the virtua server [0032] At step 110, a oca oadbaancer associated With each datacenter may transmit the maximum Weight, the cur rent Weight, and the heath of the datacenter to a goba oadbaancer, such as a DNS oadbaancer. [0033] At step 112, the goba oadbaancer, such as DNS oadbaancer, receives data associated With each P address associated With each datacenter. The data may incude the maximum Weight, the current Weight, and the heath of the datacenter. Other data may incude ping time, round trip time, and reative distance of each datacenter to end user. [0034] At step 114, the DNS oadbaancer may determine Which P address associated With a particuar datacenter Wi have the fastest resut for end user 12. This decision may be based on the maximum Weight of datacenter, the current Weight of datacenter, the heath of datacenter, ping time, round trip time, and reative distance of end user to datacenter. At step 116, the end user s HTTP request is sent to the P address of the datacenter determined by the DNS oadba ancer. [0035] Some of the steps iustrated in FG. 3 may be changed or deeted Where appropriate and additiona steps may aso be added to the?owcharts. These changes may be based on speci?c communication architectures or particuar interfacing arrangements and con?gurations of associated eements and do not depart from the scope or the teachings of the present discosure. The interactions and operations of the eements Within oadbaancers 30, 50 and Weight manager eement 60, as discosed in FG. 3, have provided merey one exampe for their potentia appications. Numerous other appications may be equay bene?cia and seected based on particuar networking needs. [0036] Athough the present discosure has been described in detai With reference to particuar embodiments, commu nication system 10 may be extended to any scenario in Which end user 12 is utiizing Weight manager eement 60 to deter mine maximum Weight capacity. Additionay, athough com munication system 10 has been described With reference to a number of eements incuded Within oadbaancers 30, 50 and Weight manager eement 60, these eements may be rear ranged or positioned anywhere Within communication sys tem 10. n addition, these eements may be provided as sepa rate externa components to communication system 10 Where appropriate. The present discosure contempates great?ex ibiity in the arrangement of these eements as We as their interna components. Moreover, athough FGS. 1 and 2 ius trate an arrangement of seected eements, numerous other components and agorithms may be used in combination With these eements or substituted for these eements Without departing from the teachings of the present discosure. [0037] Numerous other changes, substitutions, variations, aterations, and modi?cations may be ascertained to one skied in the art and it is intended that the present discosure encompass a such changes, substitutions, variations, ater ations, and modi?cations as faing Within the scope of the appended caims. What is caimed is: 1. An apparatus, comprising: a Weight manager eement ocated in a oca oadbaancer associated With a virtua server, the Weight manager eement operabe to: receive current Weight data from one or more hosts asso ciated With the virtua server; and receive a maximum Weight of the virtua server. 2. The apparatus of caim 1, Wherein the Weight manager eement is further operabe to: communicate a sum of the current Weight data from a of the hosts to a goba oadbaancer; and communicate the maximum Weight of the virtua server to the goba oadbaancer. 3. The apparatus of caim 1, Wherein the Weight manager eement is further operabe to: determine heath of the virtua server by dividing sum of the current Weight data from the one or more hosts by the maximum Weight of the virtua server. 4. The apparatus of caim 3, Wherein the Weight manager eement is further operabe to: communicate the heath of the virtua server to a goba oadbaancer; and communicate the maximum Weight of the virtua server to the goba oadbaancer. 5. The apparatus of caim 4, Wherein the goba oadba ancer is operabe to utiize the heath of the virtua server and the maximum Weight of the virtua server to determine Where a request is routed. 6. The apparatus of caim 1, Wherein the current Weight data from the one or more hosts is determined by utiizing Dynamic Feedback Protoco. 7. The apparatus of caim 1, Wherein the maximum Weight of the virtua server is received from a network operator. 8. A method, comprising: receiving current Weight data from one or more hosts asso ciated With the virtua server; and receiving a maximum Weight of the virtua server. 9. The method of caim 8, further comprising: communicating a sum of the current Weight data from a of the hosts to a goba oadbaancer; and communicating the maximum Weight of the virtua server to the goba oadbaancer. 10. The method of caim 8, further comprising: determining heath of the virtua server by dividing a sum of the current Weight data from the one or more hosts by the maximum Weight of the virtua server. 11. The method of caim 10, further comprising: communicating the heath of the virtua server to a goba oadbaancer; and communicating the maximum Weight of the virtua server to the goba oadbaancer. 12. The method of caim 11, Wherein the goba oadba ancer is operabe to utiize the heath of the virtua server and the maximum Weight of the virtua server to determine Where a request is routed. 13. The method of caim 8, Wherein the current Weight data from the one or more hosts is determined by utiizing a Dynamic Feedback Protoco. 14. The method of caim 8, Wherein the maximum Weight of the virtua server is received from a network operator. 15. An apparatus, comprising: means for receiving current Weight data from one or more hosts associated With the virtua server; and means for receiving a maximum Weight of the virtua server. 16. The apparatus of caim 15, further comprising: means for communicating sum of the current Weight data from a of the hosts to a goba oadbaancer; and

9 Ju. 30, 2009 means for communicating the maximum Weight of the virtua server to the goba oadbaancer. 17. The apparatus of caim 15, further comprising: means for determining heath of the virtua server by divid ing sum of the current Weight data from the one or more hosts by the maximum Weight of the virtua server. 18. The apparatus of caim 17, further comprising: means for communicating the heath of the virtua server to a goba oadbaancer; and means for communicating the maximum Weight of the virtua server to the goba oadbaancer. 19. The apparatus of caim 18, Wherein the goba oadba ancer comprises means for utiizing the heath of the virtua server and the maximum Weight of the virtua server to deter mine Where a request is routed. 20. The apparatus of caim 15, Wherein the goba oadba ancer comprises means for utiizing the heath and the maxi mum Weight of the virtua server to determine Where a request is routed.