Patent ID: 8566445

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a single client name server DNS (Domain Name Service) request, the single client name server DNS request including a URL; in response to the single client name server DNS request, applying a series of load balancing methods, wherein the series of load balancing methods includes a first load balancing method and a second load balancing method to be applied in a sequence, wherein: the first load balancing method is based on at least one performance metric of respective Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the single client name server DNS request, the performance metric comprising a number of connections metric; and the second load balancing method comprises a network latency load balancing coordinating multiple ones of the Domain Name Service servers available to respond to the single client name server DNS request to respond to the single client name server DNS request at the same time by simultaneously sending, respective, DNS responses to the single client name server DNS request to the client name server, each of the DNS responses to include an Internet Protocol (IP) address associated with the URL included in the single DNS request, the second load balancing method being applied after the first load balancing method completes.