Network address cache apparatus and method

Abstract

Cached information that includes multiple network addresses is delivered in a manner that changes the order of the network addresses each time the cached information is delivered to a client, thereby achieving load balancing in a manner that reduces network traffic and improves system performance. In the preferred embodiments, the user defines a minimum time to live (TTL) and one or more order change criteria. When a query is made to a DNS, the DNS returns an answer that includes a time to live (TTL). This answer may be stored in a cache, and may include multiple network addresses. If the TTL for the answer received from a DNS is less that the minimum TTL, the TTL for the answer is set to the minimum TTL before storing the answer in the cache. When a query may be satisfied by a cached answer that includes multiple network addresses, a cache mechanism delivers the multiple cached network addresses in an order determined by the one or more order change criteria if the TTL for the cached results is a positive number. In this manner load balancing can be achieved while still benefiting from the performance enhancements of caching DNS query results.