Hybrid virtual load balancer

A method, comprising:

• detecting, by a hybrid virtual load balancer (HVLB) that is implemented on a computing device, a hardware capability of a switch that is coupled to the HVLB and that supports a software defined networking (SDN) communications protocol;
• receiving a data packet from the switch;
• determining whether to offload load balancing of the data packet to the switch based on the detected hardware capability;
• and
• sending, in response to determining to offload load balancing, programming instructions to an SDN controller coupled to the switch, wherein the programming instructions direct the SDN controller to program the switch to load balance the data packet through control messages that comport with the SDN communications protocol.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations for performing load balancing of a data packet, the operations comprising:

• detecting, by a hybrid virtual load balancer (HVLB) that is implemented on the computing device, a hardware capability of a switch that is coupled to the HVLB and that supports a software defined networking (SDN) communications protocol;
• receiving the data packet from the switch;
• determining whether to offload load balancing of the data packet to the switch based on the detected hardware capability;
• and
• sending, in response to determining to offload load balancing, programming instructions to an SDN controller coupled to the switch, wherein the programming instructions direct the SDN controller to program the switch to load balance the data packet through control messages that comport with the SDN communications protocol.