Partitioning health monitoring in a global server load balancing system

For a global server load balancing (GSLB) that is performed by a plurality of domain name system (DNS) servers to perform DNS services for a plurality of resources located at a plurality of geographically separate sites, a method for collecting health monitoring, the method comprising:

• partitioning the plurality of resources into a plurality of sets of resources;
• assigning each particular set of resources to a different particular DNS server;
• and
• configuring each particular DNS server (i) to receive a list of resources that need monitoring, (ii) to perform a look-up operation that computes a value for an identifier of each particular resource on the received list of resources and uses each particular resource's computed value as an index into a look-up table that specifies whether the particular DNS server is assigned the task of monitoring the health of the particular resource, (iii) to send health monitoring messages to each particular resource on the list of resources that is assigned to the particular DNS server based on the look-up operation, (iv) to generate data by analyzing responses to the sent health monitoring messages, and (v) to distribute the generated data to the other DNS servers.