Patent ID: 7979734

Claim:
A method for preventing disruption of a service for a device in a network due to a domain name resolution failure, comprising: sending a request to a Domain Name System (DNS) server to resolve a requested domain name associated with a requested server to a resolved server IP address; in response to not receiving the resolved server IP address from the DNS server, attempting to contact the requested server by using at least one of the confirmed IP addresses on a rainy day list, the rainy day list comprising at least one confirmed IP address previously used by the device to successfully contact the requested server; in response to receiving the resolved server IP address from the DNS server, comparing the resolved IP address to at least one of the confirmed IP addresses on the rainy day list if the resolved IP address does not match any of the valid IP addresses in a filter list, the filter list comprising at least one valid Internet Protocol (IP) address declared to be valid for a server; and in response to the resolved server IP address not matching any of the IP addresses in the filter list and the rainy day list, ceasing attempts to contact the requested server, wherein the filter list and the rainy day list are independent from the DNS server.