Patent ID: 8140645

Claim:
A method of providing index server support to a file sharing application, said method comprising: handling requests for investigating a hierarchical structure of index servers in a network, including: intercepting, by an intercepting index server, an investigation request that is directed to a remote index server, the intercepting index server storing only an index providing information as to which data or file can be found on which client computer device, the intercepting index server being a closest index server to an originator of the investigation request; notifying, by the intercepting index server, the originator of the investigation request of an identity of the intercepting index server; and preventing forwarding of the intercepted investigation request to the remote index server; handling the requests for querying a file as part of a file sharing application, including: searching an index of the intercepting index server for a registered client that can provide the queried file; and forwarding the query to a registered child index server of the intercepted index server when the queried file is not allocated to a client registered in the index of the intercepting index server.