The present invention relates to communications methods and apparatus for session load balancing among session processing entities. An exemplary method embodiment includes the steps of receiving from a first device at a Signaling Front End Load Balancer (SLB) a first session initiation request destined for a second device; making a first session load balancing decision at the SLB with respect to the received first session initiation request; transmitting the first session initiation request to a first Session Border Controller (SBC) worker based on the first load balancing decision, the first SBC worker being one of a plurality of SBC workers forming a cluster of SBC workers, making a session mismatch determination at the first SBC worker with respect to a first session corresponding to the first session initiation request; and when the session mismatch determination is that a session mismatch has occurred notifying the SLB of the session mismatch.

The present invention relates to communications methods and apparatus for session load balancing among session processing entities. An exemplary method embodiment includes the steps of receiving from a first device at a Signaling Front End Load Balancer (SLB) a first session initiation request destined for a second device; making a first session load balancing decision at the SLB with respect to the received first session initiation request; transmitting the first session initiation request to a first Session Border Controller (SBC) worker based on the first load balancing decision, the first SBC worker being one of a plurality of SBC workers forming a cluster of SBC workers, making a session mismatch determination at the first SBC worker with respect to a first session corresponding to the first session initiation request; and when the session mismatch determination is that a session mismatch has occurred notifying the SLB of the session mismatch.

Some embodiments provide an elastic architecture for providing a service in a computing system. To perform a service on the data messages, the service architecture uses a service node (SN) group that includes one primary service node (PSN) and zero or more secondary service nodes (SSNs). The service can be performed on a data message by either the PSN or one of the SSN. However, in addition to performing the service, the PSN also performs a load balancing operation that assesses the load on each service node (i.e., on the PSN or each SSN), and based on this assessment, has the data messages distributed to the service node(s) in its SN group. Based on the assessed load, the PSN in some embodiments also has one or more SSNs added to or removed from its SN group. To add or remove an SSN to or from the service node group, the PSN in some embodiments directs a set of controllers to add (e.g., instantiate or allocate) or remove the SSN to or from the SN group. Also, to assess the load on the service nodes, the PSN in some embodiments receives message load data from the controller set, which collects such data from each service node. In other embodiments, the PSN receives such load data directly from the SSNs.

When a cloud services provider infrastructure (CSPI) receives a request from an administrator to perform an operation on an appliance, a load balancer may select a first server within the CSPI to process the request. If the first server does not have a connection with the appliance, the first server may generate a redirect response that includes server identification information identifying a particular server having a pre-established connection with the appliance. The first server may send the redirect response to the application that the administrator used to send the request. The application may then generate a second request that includes the server identification information, and send the second request to the CSPI. A load balancer in the CSPI may then forward the second request to the particular server, and the particular server may use the pre-established connection to send a request to the appliance requesting performance of the operation.

A system described herein may provide for the selection of a charging function (“CHF”) associated with a particular user equipment (“UE”). A particular CHF may be selected, from a group of candidate CHFs, based on CHF selection criteria respectively associated with the candidate CHFs and attribute information associated with the UE. The attribute information may describe attributes of the UE, profile information associated with the UE, and/or attributes of traffic and/or bearers associated with the UE.

A system described herein may provide for the selection of a charging function (“CHF”) associated with a particular user equipment (“UE”). A particular CHF may be selected, from a group of candidate CHFs, based on CHF selection criteria respectively associated with the candidate CHFs and attribute information associated with the UE. The attribute information may describe attributes of the UE, profile information associated with the UE, and/or attributes of traffic and/or bearers associated with the UE.

Systems and methods are described for providing connection pools between source network devices and a target, connection-limited service. Each connection pool can facilitate connections between source devices and the target service, while ensuring that connections to the connection-limited service do not exceed a defined limit. A connection manager service can initialize a connection pool for a target service on request by a client device, and provide an identifier for the connection pool to the client device. Source network devices can then transmit operations for the target service to the connection manager service, which can route the operations to an appropriate connection pool based on the identifier.

A virtual machine (VM) is migrated from a first data center that includes a data store for handling input/output operations (IOs) of the VM to a second data center that includes a proxy configured with connection information to connect to the data store to enable the proxy to handle IOs in place of the data store. The method of migrating includes installing a first redirection filter in the first data center to redirect IOs from the first VM, which are directed to the data store, to the proxy, migrating a memory state of the first VM to a second VM in the second data center, installing a second redirection filter in the second data center to redirect IOs from the second VM, which are directed to the data store, to the proxy, and after the migration has completed, deactivating the first VM and powering on the second VM.

Some embodiments of the invention provide a method for forwarding data messages between a client and a server (e.g., between client and server machines and/or applications). In some embodiments, the method receives a data message that a load balancer has directed from a particular client to a particular server after selecting the particular server from a set of several candidate servers for the received data message's flow. The method stores an association between an identifier associated with the load balancer and a flow identifier associated with the message flow, and then forwards the received data message to the particular server. The method subsequently uses the load balancer identifier in the stored association to forward to the particular load balancer a data message that is sent by the particular server. The method of some embodiments is implemented by an intervening forwarding element (e.g., a router) between the load balancer set and the server set.

Provisioning of network element with a provisioning element having a number of provisioning servers. Each provisioning server being active to support its own provisioning and to actively backup the provisioning of the provisioning servers such that operations of the provisioning servers is maximized while providing redundancy in the event that one of the other provisioning servers is lost or disabled.