RFC 3074 (rfc3074) - Page 2 of 10

DHC Load Balancing Algorithm

RFC 3074              DHC Load Balancing Algorithm         February 2001


   participating server to accept a preconfigured (approximate)
   percentage of the client load.  This is done using a deterministic
   hashing algorithm, that could easily be applied to other protocols
   having similar characteristics.

2. Terminology

   This section discusses both the generic requirements terminology
   common to many IETF protocol specifications, and also terminology
   introduced by this document.

2.1.  Requirements Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC 2119].

2.2. Load Balancing Terminology

   This document introduces the following terms:

   Service Delay, SD
      A load balancing parameter, allowing delayed service of a client
      by a server participating in the load-balancing scheme, instead of
      ignoring the client.

   Hash Bucket Assignments, HBA
      A configuration directive that assigns a set of hash bucket values
      to a server participating in the load-balancing scheme.

   Server ID, SID
      An identifier that can be used to designate one of the
      participating Servers.  In the context of DHCP, the SID is the IP
      address or DNS name of the server.

   Service Transaction, ST
      A set of client-server exchanges that lead to a server providing
      or denying some service to a client.  Example: the DISCOVER/OFFER/
      REQUEST/ACK message exchange between a DHCP server and client is a
      service transaction.

   Service Transaction ID, STID
      An attribute of the individual client requests used for load-
      balancing.







Volz, et al.                Standards Track