A system and method of allocating a resource to a service request. Servers
are virtually assigned through a hierarchy including groups of servers
and super groups of the groups of servers. Each service request type is
associated with a service index that determines both a super group and a
load balancing policy for that service request type. A load balancing
policy may be applied to select a group of servers among several server
groups associated with the super group. Another load balancing policy is
applied to the selected group of servers to select a server to handle the
service request. The hierarchical data structure allows servers to be
configured into overlappable, arbitrary subsets that can address service
requests matching configured content rules. Load balancing policies can
be selected by service request type.