Patent ID: 7552233

Claim:
A method, comprising: returning, in response to a request from a client, an address of a first server that should service a second server's request for an information object based on the second server receiving the client's request of the information object that is not located at the second server, the address of the first server being selected according to specified performance metrics, wherein the specified performance metrics comprise average processing delays at the first server, average delay from the first server to the second server, reliability of a path from the first server to the second server, and available bandwidth in said path from the first server to the second server; referring the second server's request for the information object to a first Web router; and configuring the first Web router to create a map that associates an identifier of the information object with the address of the first server according to other mappings generated by other Web routers and forwarded to the first Web router, wherein the other mappings generated by the other Web routers are forwarded to the first Web router as inter-Web router communication messages passed between the Web routers using a Web Information Locator by Distance (WILD) protocol.