overload conditions at cdn nodes to the external world each of at least a subset of nodes of the cdn is accessible using a shared anycast ip address however internal communication between nodes of the cdn e g during redirection is feasible using a unicast ip address assigned to each node in addition to overflow management the redirection techniques described herein may be employed for any other appropriate purposes for example redirection can be employed to put a cdn node into a maintenance or backup mode in order to put a cdn node into such a mode for instance no new requests are accepted and are instead redirected to one or more other cdn nodes existing sessions are serviced until they finish and once all or at least a subset of existing sessions have drained out maintenance and or backup operations are performed at the cdn node once the cdn node is ready to serve content again it is announced on the network and starts accepting new sessions with redirection to other cdn nodes taking place in the event of overload conditions as described in some embodiments a cdn node or part thereof e g server router 302 of cdn node 300 or load balancer router 402 of cdn node 400 monitors sessions in other cdn nodes and redirects incoming sessions that did not originate at the cdn node but are routed to the cdn node mid session to the cdn nodes at which they originated for example consider that a cdn comprises a cdn node in chicago and a cdn node in dallas and that the internet backbone over which the.