SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING DISTRIBUTED RESOURCES ON NETWORKS

A network system includes a network, multiple network cites for facilitating user access to the network, and a network manager. Each network cite has storage facilities to provide various resources to users of the network. Users can locally access certain resources at a local network cite to which they are connected, or remotely access other resources at remote network cites using the network. The network manager manages the location of resources among the network cites of the network according to a cost/availability criteria. This criteria balances allocating the resources among the network cites to make the resources available to the users against the cost associated with making the resources available to the users. Aspects of this invention are used in public network systems, entertainment network systems, online services systems, and local area network systems.