Reliable load-balancer using segment routing and real-time application monitoring

A system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• at least one computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to:
• receive a packet comprising a request from a source device to an application associated with a virtual address in a network;
• map the request to a set of candidate servers hosting the application associated with the virtual address;
• encode the set of candidate servers as a list of segments in a segment routing header associated with the packet, the list of segments in the segment routing header comprising one or more segment routing functions for successively steering the packet through the set of candidate servers until one of the set of candidate servers accepts the request;
• determine that a first candidate server from the set of candidate servers is a next segment in the list of segments;
• in response to determining that the first candidate server is the next segment, encode the first candidate server in a destination address field on an IPv6 header of the packet, the destination address field representing a next routing segment for the packet;
• and
• forward the packet to the first candidate server.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising:

• instructions stored therein instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
• receive a packet comprising a request from a source device to an application associated with a virtual address in a network, the packet comprising a segment routing header including a list of segments, the list of segments comprising a set of candidate servers hosting the application associated with the virtual address;
• determine whether to accept or reject the request based on a load associated with a local instance of the application;
• in response to rejecting the request based on the load, identify a next candidate server from the set of candidate servers, the next candidate server comprising a next segment in the list of segments;
• encode the next candidate server in a destination address field on an IPv6 header of the packet, the destination address field representing a next routing segment for the packet;
• and
• forward the packet to the next candidate server.