Patent ID: 8326967

Claim:
A method for managing the streaming of digital video content to multiple clients, the method comprising: establishing a logical group of IP-connected stream servers, wherein the logical group is established by associating each stream server in the logical group with the same group identifier and wherein each stream server in the logical group has an internal IP address that is not exposed to the clients; establishing one of the stream servers in the logical group as having responsibility for managing session setup, the stream server being referred to herein as the stream service master; creating connections to the stream service master using the internal IP addresses of the stream servers in the logical group; assigning a failover IP address to the stream service master, wherein the failover IP address is visible to the clients; generating state information at multiple stream servers within the logical group; sharing state information amongst stream servers in the logical group; detecting a failure of the stream service master; activating the failover IP address in one of the other stream servers in the logical group in response to the detected failure, wherein the stream server in which the failover IP address is activated becomes the new stream service master; and at the new master stream service master, using the shared state information to discover information about active streams in the logical group; wherein the above-identified steps are performed using at least one processor.