Patent ID: 7426546

Claim:
A method for selecting a first server computer for sending of data to a client computer, the method comprising the steps of: accessing a second server computer through a path in a computer network, the path comprising a first set of one or more server computers; adding information indicative of at least one server computer of the first set of one or more server computers to a locator of a resource on the second server computer, the resource having a unique signature as part of its identifier; selecting the first server computer based on the information added to the locator; wherein the second server computer being a Web application server comprising a Web page with a hyperlink referencing the data to be sent to the client computer, the hyperlink including a unique signature, the method further comprising the steps of selecting the hyperlink by the client computer, and subsequently generating an http request out of this hyperlink by a web browser, this http request containing the unique signature identifying a media request; at least temporarily storing the information added to the locator on the second server computer; providing of the information to a media request broker in response to a selection of the hyperlink by the client computer; providing the media request broker with the information, the information being indicative of the server computer of the first set of one or more server computers being a first node in the path; determining a quality weight based on the information for the first server computer node in the path and for server computers of a second set of server computers belonging to that server computer node; selecting one of the server computers from a group comprising the first server computer node in the path and the second set of server computers with a quality weight being greater than a predefined threshold value; and determining a quality weight of a second server computer node in the path in case none of the quality weights of the first group is sufficient.