Patent ID: 8010668

Claim:
A network device for managing a communication with a client device over a network, comprising: a transceiver for receiving and sending information to the client device through at least one of a plurality of gateways being interposed between the client device and at least a first and a second target server; and a traffic management component operating on the network device and that is configured to perform actions, including: determining a plurality of network metrics for at least one client device/gateway combination; combining results of evaluations of each of the plurality of network metrics to a different threshold value into a single network connection characteristic for the at least one client device/gateway combination; selecting from the first or the second target server, based at least in part on the single network connection characteristic, wherein the first target server storing low bandwidth content is selected for network connections having a low bandwidth network connection characteristic, and the second target server storing high bandwidth content is selected for network connections having a high bandwidth network connection characteristic; and enabling a communication between the client device and the selected first or second target server.