Patent ID: 8583803

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving, at a media gateway controller (MGC) device, a request from a caller to connect with a media server; sending, by the MGC device to a media gateway control protocol (MGCP) stack of the MGC device, a command to establish a connection between the caller and the media server, wherein the command comprises a name of a cluster that is communicably coupled to the MGC device and hosts one or more media servers comprising the media server; utilizing a Layer 3 multicast communications toolkit, by the MGC device via the MGCP stack, to: identify the one or more media servers in the cluster; and select one of the identified media servers in the cluster to connect to the caller based on a load-balancing policy implemented by the MGC device; maintaining, via the MGCP stack, a state of a connection between the caller and the selected one of the identified media server; and referencing, via the Layer 3 multicast communications toolkit, the maintained state of the connection at the MGCP stack when a media server is added or removed from the cluster.