Patent ID: 8914521

Claim:
A system for use in a computing environment which includes a traffic director component, comprising: a microprocessor and a computer memory; a traffic director having one or more traffic director instances operating on said microprocessor and computer memory, wherein the traffic director is configured to receive and communicate requests, from clients, to origin servers; a first pool of origin servers comprising one or more as primary servers, and or more backup servers; wherein the traffic director is configured so that it determines the availability of said one or more primary servers in the first pool, and directs all requests received by the traffic director for the first pool only to said one or more primary servers in the first pool while at least one of said primary servers in the first pool is available; and wherein the traffic director is configured so that, if no primary server is available in the first pool then the traffic director will direct all requests received by the traffic director for the first pool to said one or more backup servers in the first pool until at least one of said primary servers in the first pool becomes available again.