Content delivery network system and method for building the same

• US 20020116481A1
• Filed: 02/19/2002
• Published: 08/22/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 02/20/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kin Man Lee
• Original Assignee: Raymond Lee
• Inventors: Lee, Raymond Wei Man
• Granted Patent: US 6,810,417 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/220
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A content delivery network system is disclosed. The system comprises a communication network, a first network node for providing services for clients to access network, a second network node for managing hosts for network content providers and a third network node, wherein said third network node sets a default route and a VPN tunnel between the first and second network nodes, and provides a cache server at the bandwidth outlet of the first network node, said cache server stores a information content which has been requested and transmitted. When the client request an information content, the third network node searches the cache server. If the information content is found, the cache server provides said information content to the client directly. If the information content is not found, the cache server sends a request for catching the information content to the second network via the VPN tunnel, and transmits the information content to the client via the default route. The cache server records the data of the transmitted information content. The recorded data is provided to the second network node, so that the second network node can bill the network content provider accordingly.

Claims

1. A content delivery network system, comprising:

a communication network;

a first network node for providing network access services to clients;

a second network node for providing information contents from network content providers, said second network node and said first network node obtaining BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) route data from each other via the communication network;

a third network node setting a default route via said communication network, BGP route announcement and a VPN (Virtual Private Network) tunnel, and providing, at an access of the first network node, a cache server for storing information transmitted from the second network node,

when a client of the first network node request a certain information content, the first network node searches the cache server, if the certain information content is found, the first network node provides said information content to the client, if the certain information is not found, the first network node sends a request for catching said information content to the second network node via the VPN tunnel, and the second network node transmits said information content to the first network node via the default route, so that the information content is provided to the client.

2. The network system of claim 1, wherein the second network node uses an IP address of the third network node to transmit information contents.

3. The network system of claim 1, wherein the cache server records data of transmission of the information contents, the third network node provides the recorded data to the second network node so that the second network node can bill the network content providers based thereon.

4. The network system of claim 3, wherein the cache server is built with a billing system, said recorded data include traffic and time of the transmitted information contents, the billing system calculates average used bandwidths, sums the traffics of the respective network content providers, compares the summed result to the actual highest bandwidth to calculate a factor, multiplies the average traffic of each network content provider by the factor to obtain a maximum used bandwidth during a certain period, and bills each network content provider based on the maximum used bandwidth.

5. A network content delivering method comprising steps of:

building a communication network;

building a first network node for providing network access services to clients;

building a second network node for providing information from network content providers;

the first and second network node obtaining BGP route data from each other via the communication network;

setting a default route via the communication network, BGP route announcement and a VPN tunnel between the first and second network node and providing, at a communication access of the first network node, a cache server for storing information transmitted from the second network node;

searching the cache server when the client of the first network node requests for a certain information content;

transmitting said information content to the client if found, or sending a request for catching said information content to the second network node via the VPN tunnel if the information content is not found from the cache server, and transmitting the requested information content from the second network node to the cache server via the default route so as to transmit the same to the client.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising recording data of the transmitted information content and providing the recorded data to the second network node so that the second network can bill the network content provider based thereon.

7. The method of claim 5 further comprising a step of redirection to force all communicated contents to pass the cache server.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the step of setting routes is performed by the first and second network node taking a network address and BGP switching approval from each other.

9. The method of claim 5 further comprising a step of establishing a billing system in the cache server to record data such as traffic and time of the transmitted information and provide the recorded data to the network node so as to bill the network content providers.

10. A network managing method for a content delivery network system having a plurality of network nodes providing services of connecting network to clients and managing information contents for network content providers, said method comprising steps of:

providing a cache server at each network node;

setting default routes and BGP announcement between the network nodes;

setting VPN tunnels between the network nodes;

performing redirection to force the communication of each network node to pass the cache server provided thereto;

when a client of one network node of the network nodes requests for a certain information content, searching in the corresponding cache server;

providing to the client if said information content is found, or sending a request for catching said information content if said information content is not found;

transmitting said request for catching the information content to the cache server of the network node having said information content via the VPN tunnel;

transmitting the requested information content from the network node having the information content to the cache server sending the request via the default route;

recording data of the transmitted information content by the cache server;

collecting the recorded data from each cache server, and arranging the recorded data into data for the respective network nodes; and

providing the arranged data to the respective network nodes so that each network node can bill the network content providers based thereon.