Patent ID: 7831712

Claim:
A method for providing persistent communications between at least one client and a plurality of destination servers that serve a network domain resource, comprising: enabling at least one of the plurality of destination servers to receive application level protocol requests from a client, the application level protocol requests being forwarded to one of the plurality of destination servers with a network transmission device; receiving, at the one of the plurality of destination servers, a first application level protocol request from the client, the first application level protocol request comprising a request for access to the network domain resource provided by the destination server, wherein the client's first application level protocol request is unspecific regarding the one destination server that provides access to the network domain resource; sending, to the client, an application level protocol command to store data, the application level protocol command including information inserted by the network transmission device that indicates the one of the plurality of destination servers that received the first application level protocol request from the client; and receiving, at the one of the plurality of destination servers, a second application level protocol request from the client; wherein the information included with the application level protocol command is also included with the second application level protocol request and employable by the network transmission device to indicate the one of the plurality of destination servers.