Patent ID: 7376736

Claim:
A method associated with an origin server that has a content provider domain mirrored at a set of mirror sites, comprising: having a content delivery network (CDN) service provider provide a traffic management service to the origin server to determine which of the set of mirror sites should receive a request to the content provider domain that is replicated at the set of mirror sites, wherein the traffic management service is provided by aliasing the content provider domain to a traffic management domain managed by the CDN service provider; as the traffic management service is being provided, monitoring the origin server for occurrence of a given condition, wherein the given condition is one of: a failure at the origin server, an occurrence of excess demand at a Web site hosted on the origin server, a receipt of a request for content that cannot then be served from the origin server, an occurrence of excess traffic to the Web site originating from a given geography or network, an occurrence of excess latency at the Web site as measured by network agents, and a denial of service attack; upon occurrence of the given condition, dynamically rewriting a DNS record to point to a content delivery network (CDN) domain that is distinct from a content provider domain and the traffic management domain used by the CDN service provider to provide the traffic management service; and as the given condition persists, having a domain name server in the content delivery network (CDN) resolve the content delivery network domain to identify a content server for use in servicing the request.