Patent ID: 7792989

Claim:
A method in a client device, the method comprising: identifying by the client device a network-based client location of the client device within a network relative to an identifiable network topology; selecting by the client device one selected server from other servers, the one selected server and the other servers located at respective network-based server locations within the identifiable network topology and each configured for providing a client service, the selecting based on the client device identifying the server location of the one selected server in the identifiable network topology relative to the client location from one of a network topology map received by the client device or a subnet prefix list received by the client device, and based on the client device calculating the one selected server has at least one of the corresponding server location having a minimum network distance to the client location relative to the other servers, or a shared subnet prefix in an IP address of the one selected server; and sending a request by the client device via the network to the one selected server for the client service, wherein: the network-based client location is identified based on a corresponding network topology-based coordinate in the identifiable network topology; the corresponding server location of each of the one selected server and each of the other servers is based on a corresponding network topology-based coordinate in the identifiable network topology; the selecting including the client device determining, for each of the one selected server and each of the other servers, a corresponding network distance between the client device and the corresponding server based on comparing the respective network topology-based coordinates.