Importance

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Abstract

Some embodiments provide a novel method for load balancing data messages that are sent by a source compute node (SCN) to one or more different groups of destination compute nodes (DCNs). In some embodiments, the method deploys a load balancer in the source compute node's egress datapath. This load balancer receives each data message sent from the source compute node, and determines whether the data message is addressed to one of the DCN groups for which the load balancer spreads the data traffic to balance the load across (e.g., data traffic directed to) the DCNs in the group. When the received data message is not addressed to one of the load balanced DCN groups, the load balancer forwards the received data message to its addressed destination. On the other hand, when the received data message is addressed to one of load balancer's DCN groups, the load balancer identifies a DCN in the addressed DCN group that should receive the data message, and directs the data message to the identified DCN. To direct the data message to the identified DCN, the load balancer in some embodiments changes the destination address (e.g., the destination IP address, destination port, destination MAC address, etc.) in the data message from the address of the identified DCN group to the address (e.g., the destination IP address) of the identified DCN.

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First Claim