Content delivery network by-pass system

• US 20030174648A1
• Filed: 10/17/2002
• Published: 09/18/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: Wang, Mea, Rueda, Jose Alejandro
• Application Number:
  US10/272,299
• Publication Number:
  US 20030174648A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/235
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1013 Network architectures, gateways, control or user entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1036 at the edge
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/288 Distributed intermediate devices, i.e. intermediate devices for interaction with other intermediate devices on the same level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5682 Policies or rules for updating, deleting or replacing the stored data

Abstract

The bypass network is designed to provide fast access and high quality streaming media services anywhere anytime. There are five major components including Peering Gateway, Content Locator, Edge Server, Gateway and Client. The whole bypass network is divided into number of self-managed sub-networks, which are referred as local networks in this document. Each local network contains Edge Servers, gateways, and a Content Locator. The Edge Servers serve as cache storage and streaming servers for the local network. The gateways provide a connection point for the client computers. Each local network is managed by a Content Locator. The Content Locator handles all client requests by communicating with the Peering Gateway and actual web sites, and makes the content available on local Edge Servers. The Content Locator also balances the load on each Edge Server by monitoring the workload on them. One embodiment is designed for home users whose home machine does not move around frequently. A second embodiment is designed for business users who travel around very often where the laptops would self-configure as a client of the network.

Claims

1. A system for high streaming media performance over the network and optimized the flow control of the current computer networking system comprising:

a plurality of local networks which can connect a number of computers together including, as defined hereinafter, a client computer, a Content Locator, an Edge Server;

a first Gateway, and a Peering Gateway;

wherein the Peering Gateway computer;

manages the whole bypass network consisting of several local networks;

connects to the Internet and communicates with its peers and the Content Locators via this interface;

has one interface with Gigabit link which connects to the backbone of the peering ISPs bypass networks such that all Peering Gateways on the backbone transfer data via this interface;

has one interface with Gigabit link which connects to the Content Locators on its bypass network such that data is transferred from and to the Content Locators via this interface;

is further programmed to respond to all client log on/off request regardless their home network where either the client is a customer of current ISP or customer of peered ISPs, such that the Peering Gateway replies to the Content Locator with the client'"'"'s account information as confirmation;

wherein each local network;

has a predetermined domain identifier for identification of computers on this network;

consists one Content Locator, a plurality of Edge Servers and the first Gateway;

is managed by the Content Locator and has a Gigabit network link in parallel to the Internet connections;

wherein the Content Locator;

handles the incoming client request from either the client computer or the first Gateway and eventually makes the requested content available on one of the Edge Servers;

connects to the Internet and communicates with its peered Content Locators, the Peering Gateway, the Edge Servers and first Gateways via this interface;

has one interface with Gigabit link which connects to the backbone of the bypass networks such that the Content Locators of each local network transfer data via this interface;

has one interface with Gigabit link connects to the local network such that Data is transferred from and to the Edge Servers via this interface;

is programmed to receive all network requests coming from the first Gateway or client computer on the local network, then locate the content on both local and peered Edge Servers, where if the content is not available on the local Edge Servers, the Content Locator makes it available on one local Edge Server and informs the first Gateway or client computer;

is further programmed to load balance the local network by transferring the requested content to the least busy Edge Server such that, when selecting the Edge Server on peered local networks to transfer the requested content, the Content Locator makes decision based on predefined priority rules for its peering networks;

is further programmed to query the Edge Server on either local or peered local networks regarding the requested content and to actively balance the network traffic such that, before allowing file transfer between Edge Servers, the Content Locator contacts the actual web servers for acknowledgement;

is further programmed to reduce network traffic by accepting percentage of work load and network load from Edge Servers and peered Content Locators respectively and to combine the load percentage of each local Edge Server and various network factors to compute the network load;

is further programmed to accept transfer status from the first Gateway and Edge Server in order to handle network transformation failure in time;

is further programmed to record the transaction history for appropriate user account according to the status report by first Gateway or client computer for billing purpose;

wherein the Edge Server;

provides cache and streaming services for the local network;

connects to the Internet and communicates with the Content Locator and first Gateway or client computer via this interface;

has one interface with Gigabit link which connects to the local network to transfer data to and from the Content Locator;

is further programmed to translate the content query to cache language in order to check the content in the cache and to translate the incoming request to the appropriate streaming server'"'"'s language in order to start streaming;

wherein the first Gateway;

accepts and forwards the client requests to Content Locator and contacting the Edge Server according to the Content Locator'"'"'s response;

connects to the Internet and communicates with the Content Locator and Edge Servers via this interface;

has another interface with normal connection to communicate with clients;

is further programmed to distinguish large file requests from regular web requests;

is further programmed to detect streaming failure and inform the Edge Server and Content Locator immediately and also to report transfer status for each transaction to the Content Locator;

wherein the client computer;

is a regular client machine with the first Gateway function embedded;

is further programmed to self-configure as a client of the local network hosted by the Content Locator on start up such that client computer simply probes for existing Content Locator on the network and, upon the response, it self-configures the responding Content Locator as the default server;

and wherein the computers, which have more than one interface, have the IP address with different subnet on each network interface card.

2. The system according to claim 1 wherein, when log on/off requests arrives at the Peering Gateway, the Peering Gateway validates the information by matching the record in the database and sends confirmation to the Content Locator accordingly such that the account database is updated if the Content Locator sends a list of transaction history at log off time.

3. The system according to claim 1 wherein all client requests are forwarded to the Content Locator such that the Content Locator tries to local the requested content on the local network or the peered local networks and such that:

a) the Content Locator broadcasts the content query on the local network first and if one of the local edge servers has the content, its address is recorded as source edge server;

b) if a) failed, the Content Locator broadcasts the same query on its peered local networks with the edge server being chosen based on the load percentage and priority of the local network and with the chosen edge server being recorded as the source edge server;

c) and if b) failed, the Content Locator forwards the request to the original web server with a flag indicating not found in cache.

4. The system according to claim 1 wherein all client requests are forwarded to the Content Locator and the Content Locator forwards the original request as a bypass network request to distinguish from original web request leaving the web server to do the content locating.

5. The system according to claim 1 wherein the Content Locator sends the request and a flag, which indicates whether the content was found on the network, to the actual web site and either:

a) If the content is found, the actual web site only confirms the request with an acknowledgement so that if the source Edge Server is not on home local network, the data would transferred via the Gigabit links from the source Edge Server to the least busy local Edge Server chosen by the Content Locator.

b) In the case of content not found anywhere, the actual web site replies with the acknowledgement and starts to transfer data either via the bypass or the Internet depending on the actual web server'"'"'s network configuration whereupon the Content Locator accepts the acknowledgement and forwards the data to the least busy edge server for caching.

6. The system according to claim 5 wherein, when the requested content is available on one of the local Edge Servers, the Content Locator informs the first Gateway or client computer of the source Edge Server address and the first Gateway or client computer contacts the Edge Server and start streaming, meanwhile it reports the status to the Content Locator accordingly.

7. The system according to claim 5 wherein the requests arrive at the Content Locator directly from the requester or from the Edge Server depending on the target web server'"'"'s location and the Content Locator performs two levels of content locating is described as follows:

a) The Content Locator broadcasts the content query on the local network first so that, if one of the local edge servers has the content, its address is recorded as source edge server; and

b) If a) failed, the Content Locator broadcasts the same query on its peered local networks and the edge server is chosen based on the load percentage and priority of the local network so that the chosen edge server is recorded as the source edge server;

c) The Content Locator replies to the bypass network web request with the address of chosen source edge server and the acknowledgement so that the Content Locator replies to the ordinary web request with requested content via the Internet, since the request originates from an off bypass network client.

8. The system according to claim 1 wherein the Content Locator broadcasts the query on both local network and its peered networks accordingly such that in either handling original request or incoming multicast message, the Content Locator always does the two-level query accordingly:

a) Broadcast on the local network and if a positive response is received, the Content Locator replies to the requester with the result; and

b) If a) failed, the Content Locator continues to multicast the query on its peered local networks and upon receipt of the query results from each peered local network, it picks the edge server based on the load percentage and the priority of the local network, and replies to the requester.

9. The system according to claim 1 wherein, on a regular basis, the Content Locator pings each peered Content Locator to ensure it is still alive, and network status of each peered network is sent to the Content Locator and the Content Locator also pings each local Edge Server to ensure it is alive, and load status is sent by the Edge Server to the Content Locator so that, combining the status of all Edge Servers and traffic load, the Content Locator calculates the load percentage of the local network.

10. The system according to claim 9 wherein, when the Content Locator informs the client which Edge Server to stream the requested content, it creates a new transaction record, which includes account ID, URL, file size, status, and the transaction record is updated according to the streaming status provided by the first Gateway or client computer wherein the transaction history contains all the transaction records during the user'"'"'s log on time and this information is saved on the Peering Gateway during log off session.

11. The system according to claim 1 wherein, if a transaction failure occurs on the Edge Server, the first Gateway or client computer detects it and informs the Content Locator whereupon the Content Locator parses the status report (failure notice) and updates the transaction record and then makes the content available on an alternative Edge Server.

12. The system according to claim 1 wherein the Edge Server computes the percentage of load on a regular basis and sends it to the Content Locator wherein this factor can be used to determine the least busy Edge Server on the network for load balancing the Edge Servers

13. The system according to claim 1 wherein there are two types of requests, bypass network web request and original web request and the web servers on the bypass network are designed to handle both types of the requests, wherein the bypass network web request is responded to with the address of chosen source edge server and the acknowledgement and the ordinary web request is responded to with the requested content via the Internet in view of the fact that the request was sent by an off bypass network client.

14. The system according to claim 1 wherein, since the Edge Server is running all kinds of streaming servers, cache servers and web servers, the incoming bypass network message is translated to the message which can be understood by the appropriate application and the Edge Server is further programming to capable to translate the bypass network message to different server messages.

15. The system according to claim 1 wherein the first Gateway is arranged to check the status of each opening port for incoming streaming data and, if one port times out, it sends the Edge Server a termination notice and closes the port and, if the streaming session ends maturely, the first Gateway simply sends the Content Locator to confirm the success and otherwise, it sends a status to the Content Locator.

16. The system according to claim 1 wherein, when a client computer connects the network, it first sends out a special message searching for a Content Locator on the bypass network and, if such server replies, the client computer self-configures as a client machine on this local network by setting this server as default Content Locator whereupon the user logs on/off via the Content Locator as usual and, if the client computer is not on any CDN bypass network, it directly communicates with the home Peering Gateway over the Internet and finds a nearby local network so that the ISP sets up an first Gateway on selected local network to accept requests from clients on other networks.

17. The system according to claim 1 wherein the communication computer is further programmed:

a) When the user logs on to the Content Locator, a copy of the user account information is transferred to the Content Locator from user'"'"'s home Peering Gateway; and

b) The Content Locator maintains a local copy of the user account information so that there is a transaction history link to each account currently active on the Content Locator and the Content Locator updates the transaction history base on the transaction status reported by the first Gateway or client computer; and

c) During log off session, the transaction history and the updated account information are sent to the user'"'"'s home Peering Gateway for billing purpose; and

d) The user is billed based on amount of data transferred and log on duration.

18. The system according to claim 1 wherein, on startup of each server (Peering Gateway, Content Locator, Edge Server, and first Gateway), it actively informs its upper level server and the peered server about its existence so that all peer networks are aware of the newly peered network automatically.