Patent ID: 8756298

Claim:
A method for configuring a new server lacking both a server farm network address and a service assignment being added to a group of networked servers in a server farm, the method comprising: intercepting, at a load balancer, a network configuration request message sent to a network configuration device, the load balancer being disposed between the network configuration device and the group of networked servers; determining that the network configuration request message was sent by the new server lacking both a server farm network address and a service assignment; forwarding the network configuration request message to the network configuration device to obtain an IP address for the new server; determining a pool of networked servers within the group of networked servers, the determination including: receiving the IP address of the new server, determining all IP address ranges used by the group of networked servers in the server farm, comparing the IP address of the new server with all the IP address ranges, and determining a sub-range of IP addresses which the IP address of the new server belongs to, the sub-range corresponding to the pool of networked servers; monitoring a health state of constituent services among multiple constituent services operating within the pool of network servers; determining, based on monitoring the health state, a highest priority service operating on at least one server within the pool of network servers from among the multiple constituent services operating within the pool of networked servers; designating a configuration for the new server which is based on the highest priority service; and automatically configuring the new server for the highest priority service and with the IP address of the new server.