Intelligent load balancing and failover of network traffic

A non-transitory computer-readable medium including instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to establish a network connection that avoids address resolution protocol (ARP) cache corruption, by performing the steps of:

• intercepting an ARP request packet being transmitted to a first network interface card (NIC) included in a computing device, wherein the ARP request packet includes a first media access control (MAC) address associated with the first NIC and a first Internet protocol (IP) address;
• selecting a second NIC included in the computing device and associated with a second MAC address;
• replacing the first IP address with a dummy IP address and the first MAC address with the second MAC address to generate a modified ARP request packet;
• and
• broadcasting the modified ARP request packet to one or more remote computing devices, wherein the modified ARP request received by a first remote computing device causes the first remote computing device to update a local ARP cache to store a relationship between the dummy IP address and the second MAC address;
• wherein the first IP address comprises an IP address of a host computing device;
• wherein the dummy IP address comprises an un-mapped IP address in a network that includes the host computing device.

A computer system, comprising:

• a plurality of network interface cards (NICs);
• and
• a processor that executing a load balancing failover module that is configured to:
• intercept an address resolution protocol (ARP) request packet being transmitted to a first NIC included in the plurality of NICs, wherein the ARP request packet includes a first media access control (MAC) address associated with the first NIC and a first Internet protocol (IP) address,
• select a second NIC included in the plurality of NICs and associated with a second MAC address,
• replace the first IP address with a dummy IP address and the first MAC address with the second MAC address to generate a modified ARP request packet, and
• broadcast the modified ARP request packet to one or more remote computing devices, wherein the modified ARP request received by a first remote computing device causes the first remote computing device to update a local ARP cache to store a relationship between the dummy IP address and the second MAC address;
• wherein the first IP address comprises an IP address of a host computing device;
• wherein the dummy IP address comprises an un-mapped IP address in a network that includes the host computing device.