1. A method for servicing a request from a client system for transferring a streaming media object, the method comprising: receiving, at a stream director node comprising one or more hardware processors, a request from a client system for a streaming media object; by the stream director node, identifying a stream engine node that includes the streaming media object in a networked data storage from which the streaming media object is to be transferred; by the stream director node, authenticating and verifying that a user of the client system is able to reserve system resources; and responsive to successful authentication and verification that the user of the client system is able to reserve system resources: by the stream director node, passing back a location of the streaming media object to the client system; by the stream director node, verifying that sufficient system resources are available to service the request by testing a load of the networked data storage against a load threshold; responsive to failed verification that sufficient system resources are available to service the request, queuing, by the stream director node, the request until sufficient system resources become available; and responsive to successful verification that sufficient system resources are available to service the request: by the stream director node, dequeuing the request and preparing a data transfer path comprising one or more routers and one or more switches between the networked data storage and the client system that made the request, the stream director node not being included in the data transfer path; by the stream director node, programming the one or more routers and the one or more switches to cause the one or more routers and the one or more switches to be reserved for use in a data transfer of the streaming media object; and transferring by the stream engine node, over the data transfer path between the client system that made the request and the networked data storage, a stream of data in packets comprising the streaming media object.