System and method for routing streaming data requests

A system comprising:

• a first server computing device having access to a copy of the data, wherein a set of available transmission routes exist between the first server computing device and the client computing device over which the first server computing device can stream the data to the client computing device;
• a gateway, implemented by at least one processor, that receives a data request from the client computing device and that selects a first transmission route from the set of available transmission routes between the first server computing device and the client computing, the gateway selects the first transmission route from the set of available transmission routes based on transmission cost associated with each of the set of available transmission routes being within a predetermined cost range which is respective of a threshold among the set of the available transmission routes, and in accordance with attributes of the first server computing device and the client computing device, said attributes are associated with the transmission cost of the set of available transmission routes, said attributes comprise latency information between the first server computing device and the client computing device, distance between the first server computing device and client computing device, network information associated with the first server computing device, and a current load on the first server computing device;
• and
• the first server computing device streams the data to the client computing device via the first transmission route based on an estimated latency between the client computing device and the first server computing device.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium tangibly encoded with computer-executable instructions for, when executed by a computing device, performing a method comprising:

• receiving a request to stream data to a client computing device;
• selecting a first transmission route between a first server computing device and the client computing device from a set of available transmission routes between the first server computing device and the client computing device, said selecting of the first transmission route based on a cost of the first transmission route relative to costs of the other available transmission routes, and in accordance with attributes of the first server computing device and the client computing device, said attributes are associated with the cost of the other available transmission routes, said attributes comprise latency information between the first server computing device and the client computing device, distance between the first server computing device and client computing device, network information associated with the first server computing device, and a current load on the first server computing device;
• determining that the first transmission route is within a predetermined cost range respective of a threshold among the set of available transmission routes;
• estimating a communication latency between the client computing device and the first server computing device;
• and
• transmitting a response to the client computing device from the first server computing device, the response directing the client computing device to transmit a direct request to the first server, the direct request being a request to stream the data to the client computing device via the first transmission route, said first server computing device streaming the data based on the estimated communication latency.