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US006625152B1
(12) United States Patent ao) Patent No.: us 6,625,152 Bi
Monsen et al. (45) Date of Patent: Sep. 23,2003
(21) Appl. No.: 09/416,781
(22) Filed: Oct. 13, 1999
(51) Int. CI.7 H04L 12/56
(52) U.S. CI 370/392; 370/218; 370/242;
709/203
(58) Field of Search 370/218, 242,
370/245, 395.52, 401, 902, 240, 497, 392;
709/200, 201, 203, 208, 209
(56) References Cited
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
5,351,243 A * 9/1994 Kalkunte et al 370/475
5,602,729 A * 2/1997 Kraeger et al 717/124
5,790,554 A * 8/1998 Pitcher et al 370/471
5,805,808 A * 9/1998 Hasani et al 709/243
5,917,821 A * 6/1999 Gobuyan et al 370/392
* cited by examiner
Primary Examiner—Hassan Kizou
Assistant Examiner—Andrew M. Waxman
(74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Chapin & Huang, L.L.C.;
David E. Huang, Esq.
A server installation, which includes multiple servers, services a client request using a filter index that is different than a destination address associated with the client request. This enables clients to generate client requests for a server installation in a conventional manner without regard to whether a server installation is formed by one server or multiple servers. Accordingly, when a server installation is scaled by increasing the number of servers for redundancy, load distribution or capacity reasons, reconfiguration of the clients utilizing the servers is unnecessary. In one arrangement, the data resides in a data structure having (i) a device identifier that uniquely identifies the server host among multiple server hosts, and (ii) a filter index which is different than the device identifier.
24 Claims, 12 Drawing Sheets
