Method and system for providing media services by distributed networks

Abstract

Techniques for managing media services in a distributed environment are disclosed. Data representing an item in the media service is distributed among devices in service. When a requesting device is newly joined and requests for the item, at least one supplying device is designed to supply the data to the requesting device. The supplying device may be a server or a peer device. In one case, each of the devices is behind a network address translator. A server, in responding to a request from a requesting device for needed data, is configured to determine some of devices in service to be candidates from a database, where the database has many entries, each of the entries pertaining to one of the devices. The candidates are determined in accordance with at least compatibility of respective network address translators with a network address translator of the requesting device. Among the candidates, the server then designates a finalist that is preferably not designated to be a supplying device more often than it should be on average. The server then notifies either the requesting device or the supplying device so that the requesting device can get the needed data directly from the supplying device.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.