Integrated adaptive anycast for content distribution

A system includes first and second cache servers, a domain name server, and a route controller. The cache servers respond to an anycast address. The first and second cache servers respond to first and second unicast addresses respectively. The router controller determines if the first cache server is non-overloaded, overloaded, or offline. The route controller instructs the domain name server to provide the second unicast address when the status is overloaded or offline, and modifies routing of the anycast address to direct a content request sent to the anycast address to the second cache server when the status is offline. The domain name server receives a request from a requestor, and provides an anycast address to the requestor when the status of the first cache server is non-overloaded, and provides the second unicast address to the requestor when the status of the first cache server is offline or overloaded.