A process developed by IBM in which
client requests over the Internet can be routed to the
cell that is geographically closest. When one or more
mirror sites exists, ping triangulation uses a process called
echo location. When a
server receives a client request, it sends out an
ICMP echo, or
ping, packet across the Internet to the mirror sites and times the echo response. From this information, the most appropriate site to respond to the client request is determined. Basically, ping triangulation maps in multidimensional space the location of every mirror site and the end-user, sending that user not only to an open server but to the closest open server.
