Patent ID: 8615652

Claim:
A system for providing load balanced, secure media content delivery in a distributed computing environment, the system comprising: a centralized control center that segments and encrypts media content into a set of individual encrypted segments, a plurality of the segments being a portion of or an entirety of a media content size, the centralized control center including an encryption module stored in memory and executable by a processor to encrypt each individual segment to a unique encryption key; a plurality of intermediate control nodes that stage the set of individual encrypted segments; a plurality of intermediate servers that mirror individual encrypted segments from the staged set; at least one client that: sends requests for the media content to the centralized control center, receives the set of individual encrypted segments from one of an intermediate control node and an intermediate server optimally sited from a requesting client, and reassembles the set of individual encrypted segments into the media content for media playback, and includes: a broadcasting module stored in memory and executable to broadcast a pulse prior to receiving individually encrypted segments, and a request processing module stored in memory and executable to select the optimally sited one of intermediate control node and intermediate server based on responses to the pulse for subsequent receipt of the set of individual encrypted segments; and a mirroring module stored in memory and executable to mirror individual encrypted segments from a staged complete set to a plurality of peer clients, wherein the request processing module receives the set of individual encrypted segments from one of the intermediate control node, the intermediate server and the plurality of peer clients optimally sited from the requesting client.