Patent ID: 9485292
Filing Date: 2016-11-01
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method comprising: at a network device: intercept packets of a control session initiated by a client between the client and a connection broker to obtain data from a host; terminating the control session between the client and the connection broker and initiating a new control session with the connection broker on behalf of the client; replacing client address information with address information of the network device such that the network device presents itself as the client to the connection broker; in response to initiating the new control session, receiving a control session message from the connection broker indicating host information; replacing the host information with the address information of the network device in the control session message and relaying the control session message to the client; storing data mapping the client to the host; receiving from the client a connection request message for a data session with the host and establishing a data session with the client, wherein the data session is multimedia streaming; based on the data mapping the client to the host, initiating a data session with the host on behalf of the client and relaying data between the data session with the host and the data session with the client such that the network device is transparent to the client and the host, wherein the connection broker is not in a data path of the data session with the host and of the data session with the client, wherein the network device is configured to modify the data session with the host on behalf of the client to provide service-level functions to the data session including quality of service, offloading data flows associated with the data session and computing a protocol specific performance characterization of the offloaded data flows; replicating multimedia data from a multimedia source; and sending the multimedia data to multiple clients.