System and method for dynamic discovery of origin servers in a traffic director environment

A method for implementing a traffic director which receives and communicates requests from clients to a plurality of pools of origin servers each comprising a plurality of origin servers, the method comprising:

• providing a dynamic configuration module wherein the dynamic configuration module stores information about the plurality of pools of origin servers and the pluralities of origin servers of said plurality of pools of origin servers;
• providing an HTTP connection handler which receives HTTP requests from said clients;
• providing an HTTP engine which receives said HTTP requests from said HTTP connection handler;
• providing a reverse proxy module in said HTTP engine, wherein the reverse proxy module selects a pool of said plurality of pools of origin servers to which said requests should be directed and forwards said requests one or more of the plurality of origin servers in said pool;
• providing a health check subsystem in said traffic director;
• periodically sending HTTP health check requests from said health check subsystem to each of said pluralities of origin servers of said plurality of pools of origin servers;
• receiving HTTP health check responses at the health check subsystem from each of said pluralities of origin servers of said plurality of pools of origin servers;
• analyzing said HTTP health check responses to determine whether any new server instance has been configured as an origin server within the plurality of pools of origin servers, and
• automatically updating the dynamic configuration module, if a new server instance has been configured as an origin server as indicated by said HTTP health check responses, to include the new server instance.

A non-transitory computer readable medium, including instructions stored thereon for implementing a traffic director which receives and communicates requests from clients to a plurality of pools of origin servers each comprising a plurality of origin servers, which instructions, when read and executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform steps comprising:

• providing a dynamic configuration module wherein the dynamic configuration module stores information about the plurality of pools of origin servers and the pluralities of origin servers of said plurality of pools of origin servers;
• providing an HTTP connection handler which receives HTTP requests from said clients;
• providing an HTTP engine which receives said HTTP requests from said HTTP connection handler;
• providing a reverse proxy module in said HTTP engine, wherein the reverse proxy module selects a pool of said plurality of pools of origin servers to which said requests should be directed and forwards said requests one or more of the plurality of origin servers in said pool;
• providing a health check subsystem in said traffic director;
• periodically sending HTTP health check requests from said health check subsystem to each of said pluralities of origin servers of said plurality of pools of origin servers;
• receiving HTTP health check responses at the health check subsystem from each of said pluralities of origin servers of said plurality of pools of origin servers;
• analyzing said HTTP health check responses to determine whether any new server instance has been configured as an origin server within the plurality of pools of origin servers, and
• automatically updating the dynamic configuration module, if a new server instance has been configured as an origin server as indicated by said HTTP health check responses, to include the new server instance.