Patent ID: 7111061

Claim:
A method of determining which of a set of content provider mirror sites should receive an end user's initial request, comprising: generating a network map during a map generation process according to the following sub-steps: dynamically determining a set of proxy points, wherein each proxy point of the set of proxy points is determined by directing a trace route from each of a set of content provider mirror sites toward a given local name server and determining a given point in the Internet where the trace routes from each of the set of content provider mirror sites intersect; probing each of the proxy points from each of the set of content provider mirror sites to generate given data; generating a download predictor score for each content provider mirror site based on the given data generated by probing the proxy points; identifying which mirror site provides a best download performance based on the download predictor score; and associating a given name server IP address with the identified mirror site to generate the network map; and upon completion of the map generation process, in response to an end user's initial request to a given local name server, returning an IP address of the identified mirror site based on information in the network map.