Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for managing gateway switchovers. An indication is received that a primary gateway will be switched to a backup gateway. In response to the indication, a response is made to a periodic health probe that a gateway switchover has been initiated. Incoming data traffic is forwarded from the primary gateway to the backup gateway. Subsequent to an elapsed time delay, a response is made to the periodic health probe that the primary gateway will no longer accept incoming data traffic. The time delay may be based at least in part on one or more of a time interval of the periodic poll and a time to effect the gateway switchover. The forwarding of the incoming data traffic from the primary gateway to the backup gateway is terminated.

Abstract: A Top of Rack (TOR) switch operating with a Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) platform is implemented using commodity switch hardware and is configured to maintain or retrieve flow state information for incoming data flows in a load balancer. In one embodiment, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) informs a user mode container flow state information for each incoming data flow. The user mode container informs the ASIC of any affected flows that may result pursuant to a modified distributed system (e.g., added, updated, or removed servers). In other embodiments, the ASIC may utilize remote direct memory access (RDMA) to retrieve flow state information maintained by a remote device or may utilize the RDMA to retrieve network address translation (NAT) information for incoming traffic. In each of the implementations, the integrity of the load balancing system is maintained when the distributed system of servers changes.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for managing gateway switchovers. An indication is received that a primary gateway will be switched to a backup gateway. In response to the indication, a response is made to a periodic health probe that a gateway switchover has been initiated. Incoming data traffic is forwarded from the primary gateway to the backup gateway. Subsequent to an elapsed time delay, a response is made to the periodic health probe that the primary gateway will no longer accept incoming data traffic. The time delay may be based at least in part on one or more of a time interval of the periodic poll and a time to effect the gateway switchover. The forwarding of the incoming data traffic from the primary gateway to the backup gateway is terminated.