Patent ID: 7333974

Claim:
A two tier information retrieval system for distributing one or more service requests to one or more query servers, the service request being from a client, the system comprising: a web server in the first tier, the web server invoking a gateway upon receiving the service request; one or more query servers suitable for fulfilling the service request, the gateway determining a presence of a server identification parameter in the service request, the server identification parameter identifying a query server among the one or more query servers, the query server having handled a previous service request from the client; the gateway distributing the service request directly to the query server identified by the server identification parameter; a dispatcher in communication with the web server the dispatcher and the one or more query servers forming a second tier for receiving information related to a second service request without the server identification parameter from the gateway, for receiving status information from the one or more query servers, and for forwarding the second service request to an available query server of the one or more query servers; the dispatcher including a queue for the second service request; and a server manager monitoring and collecting information related to the operation of the one or more query servers, the server manager communicating the collected information to the dispatcher.