A method and server system for providing application layer session routing based on network element availability. A server system (12, 18) is arranged to monitor the abilities of session control edge nodes (21A-D) within a large VoIP and Multimedia transit network (20) to handle session set-up requests. A status module (38) in the server system receives status messages (22, 24) from the edge nodes and based on these messages a selection and modification module (40, 41) selects which edge nodes (21A-D) as well as which of their associated interconnects to other networks to include in a response (5) to a routing request (4) from a source node (21A-D).