Patent ID: 8166179

Claim:
A method for managing media streaming between clients on a client side of a network and stream servers on a stream server side of the network, wherein communications between the client side and the stream server side require a network address translation (NAT), the method comprising: sharing the same Internet Protocol (IP) address amongst a plurality of stream servers such that the stream servers can simultaneously use the IP address as a stream server side IP address for different media sessions; establishing media sessions between clients and stream servers of the plurality of stream servers, wherein establishing a media session involves mapping a stream server side IP address and a stream server side port number to a stream server, wherein the port number is a Transport Layer port number and wherein communications between the client side and the stream server side require a NAT according to a NAT mapping; switching an established media session from one stream server to a different stream server without changing the stream server side IP address or the stream server side port number of the media session so that the switch of the media session does not trigger a change in the NAT mapping; the method further comprising: on the stream server side, embedding a feedback IP address into a payload portion of an RTCP message, wherein the feedback IP address is unique to the stream server that is sourcing a media session and is embedded by the stream server that is sourcing the media session, and transmitting the RTCP message to a client from the stream server that is sourcing the media session; on the stream server side, receiving an RTCP message from the client, which is related to the media session, wherein the feedback IP address is used as the destination IP address of the received RTCP message; embedding a different feedback IP address into a payload portion of an RTCP message after the media session is switched from one stream server to a different stream server, wherein the different feedback IP address is unique to the different steam server and is embedded by the stream server that is sourcing the media session, and transmitting the RTCP message to the client from the stream server that is sourcing the media session; and on the stream server side, receiving another RTCP message from the client, which is related to the media session, wherein the different feedback IP address is used as the destination IP address of the received RTCP message.