Abstract: The invention relates to data processing machine network architecture and more particularly relates to the load balancing of data servers. A data server (3) is constituted by at least two server data processing machines (1, 2) capable of providing the same services. The server data processing machines (1, 2) have the same physical address MAC0 to which the same network protocol address is assigned in order to establish connections of client machines to the server (3), which is considered as a single virtual machine. Each server data processing machine comprises filtering means so that each connection of a client machine (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) to the virtual machine corresponds to a unique connection effective with one and only one server data processing machine (1 or 2). The filtering means of each server data processing machine (1, 2) take into account at least one indicator of the status of each server data processing machine (1, 2) having the same physical address MAC0.