Patent ID: 6865601

Claim:
A method for operating a server cluster comprising N server nodes to service client requests, each client request being directed to one of a plurality of sites hosted on said server cluster, each site being identified by a domain name and each server node being identified by an address on a network connecting said clients to said server nodes, said method comprising the steps of: measuring the computational resources required to service said requests to each of said sites over a first time period; grouping said sites into N groups, each group being assigned to a corresponding one of said server nodes such that for each pair of groups, a difference in the sum of said measured computational resources is within a first predetermined error value; and providing configuration information to a router accessible from said network, said information defining a correspondence between each of said sites and one of said server nodes assigned to one of said groups containing that site, said router providing said address of said server node in response to a message specifying said domain name of said site.