Patent ID: 8849970

Claim:
A server comprising: a processor; and a computer readable storage medium having program instructions stored therein, the program instructions executable by the processor to cause the server to, in response to a request from a client to access an instance of an object, determine whether location information stored at the server indicates location of the instance of the object at one or more of a surrogate payload server and a primary payload server, wherein the primary payload server and the surrogate payload server are implemented using separate computers, the location information stored at the server comprises derived location mappings between names of objects and locations of instances of objects, and the derived location mappings are generated from responses to queries by the server to another server querying for location information of instances of objects, obtain the location of the instance of the object from the other server if the server determines that the location information stored at the server does not indicate the location of the instance of the object, and generate a reply to the request from the client, wherein the reply indicates the location information of the instance of the object as one or more of the surrogate payload server and the primary payload server.