Patent ID: 7523170

Claim:
A method for providing distributed service location information to a network device via a computer network, the method comprising: receiving a first lookup request from a first network device, the first lookup request including a request for obtaining at least one network address relating to a first service which is accessible via a first network address domain, the first lookup request further including network entity information relating to an identity of a first network entity; accessing network topology information relating to the computer network; dynamically selecting, using the network entity information and network topology information and network topology information, a first network address relating to the first service, wherein the selection of the first network address is based at least in part on the identity of the first network entity and selected network topology information; and generating a first response to the first lookup request which includes information relating to the first network address; wherein the first lookup request includes delegated domain information relating to the first network address domain; and wherein the network entity information is prepended to the delegated domain information.