Patent ID: 8479242

Claim:
A method for leveling requests for serving digital content over a network across a plurality of servers, the method comprising: receiving, by a computer, a plurality of digital video content items; storing each digital video content item on a storage medium associated with at least one of the plurality of servers; during a measurement time, receiving, by a computer, requests for the digital video content items; during the measurement time, serving each digital content item in response to a request, the digital content item served by one of the servers having the digital video content item stored on an associated storage medium; receiving, by a master server, load balancing data from each of the plurality of servers, the load balancing data including throughput data for each server, a file size for each digital content item, and a number of times the digital content item was served by the server during the measurement time; comparing, by the master server, the received throughput data from each of the plurality of servers against a threshold value; responsive to the received throughput data for a first of the plurality of servers exceeding the threshold value, moving at least one digital video content item from the first server to a second of the plurality of servers, the second of the plurality of servers having lower throughput during the measurement time than the first of the plurality of servers; and during a second measurement time, serving the digital video content item by the second of the plurality of servers in response to a request received during the second measurement time.