Patent ID: 8055754

Claim:
A method for verifying an availability of a server comprising: checking for a receipt of a message regarding a transmission of a server keepalive test by a first client within a first predetermined period of time; if no message regarding the transmission of the keepalive test is received by the first client within the first predetermined period of time, the first client transmitting a message regarding a collective request to a plurality of predefineable other clients; transmitting an availability request by the first client to the server, the availability request to the server comprising data of the predefineable other clients that responded to the message regarding the collective request within a second predetermined period of time; preventing transmission of any availability requests by the plurality of predefinable other clients to the server for at least a prescribable period of time; and after a third predetermined period of time or after receipt of a response to the availability request sent to the server, the first client transmitting a message regarding an availability of the server to the predefinable other clients that responded to the message regarding the collective requests within the second predetermined period of time.