Patent ID: 7647424

Claim:
A multi-level redirection system, comprising: a plurality of managers receiving a redirected request via a first level redirection of an original request based on global information and performing a second level redirection of the redirected request to one of a group of cache servers based on local information; and, wherein the global information relates to multiple distributed network locations and the local information is specific to one of the multiple distributed network locations; a domain name server for storing IP addresses of the plurality of managers and returning the IP addresses of the plurality of managers in response to the original request from a client; wherein the first level redirection operates to redirect the original request to one of the plurality of managers based on the returned IP addresses of the plurality of managers, or alternatively, based on a reply to the original request by the origin server; wherein the plurality of managers is geographically distributed across a network based on the global information, and at each of the multiple distributed network locations, each manager is associated with and assigned to the group of cache servers for monitoring and selecting the cache servers; wherein the group of the cache servers includes multiple, cache servers, instead of an individual cache server, at least one cache server comprising a central processing unit (CPU) and a memory, and each manager monitors a live status of the group of the cache servers, wherein each manager selects a best cache server within the group of the cache servers based on the live status of the multiple cache servers.