Method of load balancing edge-enabled applications in a content delivery network (CDN)

Abstract

A method and system of load balancing application server resources operating in a distributed set of servers is described. In a representative embodiment, the set of servers comprise a region of a content delivery network. Each server in the set typically includes a server manager process, and an application server on which edge-enabled applications or application components are executed. As service requests are directed to servers in the region, the application servers manage the requests in a load-balanced manner, and without any requirement that a particular application server spawned on-demand.

1 . Apparatus for use in a distributed computing environment wherein each of a set of machines comprises a manager process and an application server on which one or more web applications are adapted to be loaded and executed, comprising:
 a processor, and   computer memory holding computer program instructions adapted to be executed by the processor to load balance in-bound services requests to the set of machines based at least in part on a weighting mapping of web applications to manger processes for the set of machines and such that the service requests are handled by web applications without having to spawn application servers on-demand.   
     
     
         2 . The apparatus as described in  claim 1  wherein the weighting mapping balances a given resource usage value across the set of machines. 
     
     
         3 . The apparatus as described in  claim 2  wherein the resource usage value is an arbitrary unit of work representing resource usage on a particular machine. 
     
     
         4 . The apparatus as described in  claim 3  wherein the resource usage value is (i) a flit-capacity, and (ii) a memory capacity, where a flit is an arbitrary unit of work representing resource usage on the machine. 
     
     
         5 . The apparatus as described in  claim 3  wherein the weighted mapping is re-generated if the resource usage values across the set of machines becomes unbalanced. 
     
     
         6 . The apparatus as described in  claim 3  wherein the weighted mapping is also a function of application server memory capacity on each machine. 
     
     
         7 . The apparatus as described in claim  12  wherein the resource usage value represents non-bandwidth resource usage at a machine. 
     
     
         8 . The apparatus as described in  claim 1  wherein the weighted mapping of web applications to manager processes requires a given web application to be loaded onto a machine. 
     
     
         9 . The apparatus as described in  claim 1  wherein the weighted mapping of web applications to manager processes requires a given web application to be unloaded from a machine. 
     
     
         10 . The apparatus as described in  claim 1  wherein the set of machines are co-located.