public Server chooseServer(Object key) {
        if (counter == null) {
            counter = createCounter();
        }
        counter.increment();
        if (rule == null) {
            return null;
        } else {
            try {
                return rule.choose(key);
            } catch (Exception e) {
                logger.warn("LoadBalancer [{}]:  Error choosing server for key {}", name, key, e);
                return null;
            }
        }
    }
Class that contains the mechanism to "ping" all the instances

@author stonse
ribbon-loadbalancer/src/main/java/com/netflix/loadbalancer/BaseLoadBalancer.java