Backup peers in an asymmetrically organized computer network are organized into a "pool" of available devices that are activated as necessary. The network comprises a set of remote peers and a set of local peers directly associated with a central computational facility, the local peers facilitating connection between the remote peers and the central facility. During the capabilities exchange, the "primary" local peer to which the remote peer connects provides a list of backup peer devices to the remote peer. If the primary peer fails (or if the rate of message exchange falls below some predetermined threshold), the remote peer can use the backup information to access a backup peer from the pool. The invention allows each backup peer to be assigned to multiple remote peers, with the total number of backup peers determined by aggregate backup utilization (rather than simply assigning an individual backup peer to each primary peer regardless of whether such a high level of redundancy is justified).