How to distribute clients across servers?

Question

ASP.NET

I solve the following problem:
Desktop clients download large amounts of data via the Internet (via http).
One server is not enough, something like load balancing is required.
I see the following architecture:
- clients contact the main web service to get the address of the server distributing files;
- the web service takes into account the number of active clients on each server and returns the address of the least loaded server to the client.
Question: How to provide a web service with knowledge about the number of current connections on other servers?
Options that come to mind:
- the client itself can send a report to the web service about the completion of downloading the file, but it can “fall off” before the end, and the service will not know about it and will take it into account in vain;
- keep a constant connection between the web service and clients during the download. How can this be implemented within ASP.NET?
PS: I would be grateful for any ideas)

Answer 1

1) Posts on Habré about Mail.ru video hosting, they described in detail what and how they do.
2) https://github.com/quozd/awesome-dotnet#distribute...
3) getakka.net