Content delivery system providing accelerate content delivery

• US 20030236837A1
• Filed: 03/01/2001
• Published: 12/25/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Surgient Networks, Inc. (Quest Software, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Surgient Networks, Inc. (Quest Software, Inc.)
• Inventors: Jackson, Gregory J., Garvens, Thomas E., Bailey, Brian W., Canion, Rodney S., Richter, Roger K., Johnson, Scott C.
• Application Number:
  US09/797,195
• Publication Number:
  US 20030236837A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5022 by giving priorities, e.g. assigning classes of service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5029 Service quality level-based billing, e.g. dependent on measured service level customer is charged more or less
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0888 Throughput
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10015 Access to distributed or replicated servers, e.g. using brokers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/10 Streamlined, light-weight or high-speed protocols, e.g. express transfer protocol [XTP] or byte stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/161 : Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/163 : In-band adaptation of TCP data exchange; In-band control procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/164 : Adaptation or special uses of UDP protocol
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/165 : Combined use of TCP and UDP protocols; selection criteria therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 : Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 : in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 : Network security protocols

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for network connected content delivery systems that employ functional multi-processing to optimize bandwidth utilization and accelerate system performance. In one embodiment, the content delivery system may include a switch based computing system. The system may further include an asymmetric multi-processor system configured in a staged pipeline manner.

Claims

1. A method of providing a network endpoint content delivery system through the use of a network connectable computing system, comprising:

providing a plurality of separate processor engines, the processor engines being assigned separate tasks in an asymmetrical multi-processor configuration;

providing a network interface connection to at least one of the processor engines to couple the content delivery system to a network;

providing a storage interface connection to the storage processor engine to couple the storage processor engine to a content storage system; and

accelerating content delivery through the network endpoint system by allowing the plurality of separate processor engines to operate in a staged pipeline manner thereby enabling parallel processing of separate system tasks.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of separate processor engines comprises a storage processor engine, an application processor engine, and a network interface processor engine.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the network interface processor engine comprises a network processor.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the network processor engine replaces portions of data packets with contextually meaningful information prior to forwarding the data packets for processing by other processor engines.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein the storage processor engine, an application processor engine, and a network interface processor engine communicate as peers across a distributed interconnect.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the distributed interconnect is a switch fabric.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein protocol processing is off-loaded from the application processing engine and the storage processor engine.

8. The method of claim 2 wherein a content delivery path from the storage processor engine to the network by-passes the application processor engine.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one or more of the plurality of separate processor engines are comprised of separate processor modules operating in parallel within the separate processor engine.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the plurality of separate processor engines comprises a storage processor engine, an application processor engine, and a network interface processor engine, wherein at least one of the storage processor engine or the application processor engine is formed from a plurality of separate processor modules.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the storage processor engine is comprised of a plurality of storage processor modules operating in parallel and the application processor engine is comprised of a plurality of application processor modules operating in parallel.

12. A network endpoint content delivery system, comprising:

a plurality of separate processor engines, the processor engines being assigned separate tasks in an asymmetrical multi-processor configuration;

a network interface connection to at least one of the processor engines to couple the content delivery system to a network; and

a storage interface connection to the storage processor engine to couple the storage processor engine to a content storage system;

wherein the plurality of separate processor engines operate in a staged pipeline manner thereby enabling parallel processing of separate system tasks.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the plurality of separate processor engines comprises a storage processor engine, an application processor engine, and a network interface processor engine.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the network interface processor engine comprises a network processor.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the storage processor engine, an application processor engine, and a network interface processor engine communicate as peers across a distributed interconnect.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the distributed interconnect is a switch fabric.

17. The system of claim 15 wherein at least one or more of the plurality of separate processor engines are comprised of separate processor modules operating in parallel within the separate processor engine.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the plurality of separate processor engines comprises a storage processor engine, an application processor engine, and a network interface processor engine, wherein at least one of the storage processor engine or the application processor engine is formed from a plurality of separate processor modules.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the storage processor engine is comprised of a plurality of storage processor modules operating in parallel and the application processor engine is comprised of a plurality of application processor modules operating in parallel.

20. A network connectable content delivery system, comprising:

a first processor engine;

a second processor engine, the second processor engine being assigned types of tasks different from the types of tasks assigned to the first processor engine;

a third processor engine, the third processor engine being assigned types of tasks that are different from the types of tasks assigned to the first and second processor engines; and

a distributed interconnection coupled to the first, second and third processor engines,

wherein the tasks of the first, second and third processor engines are assigned such that the system operates in asymmetrical multi-processor staged pipeline manner through the distributed interconnection to provide accelerated content delivery.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein at least one or more of the first, second or third processor engines are comprised of separate processor modules operating in parallel within the separate processor engine.

22. The system of claim 21 wherein the first processor engine comprises a network interface engine, the second processor engine comprises an application processor engine, and the third processor engine comprises a storage processor engine, wherein at least one of the storage processor engine or the application processor engine is formed from a plurality of separate processor modules.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein the storage processor engine is comprised of a plurality of storage processor modules operating in parallel and the application processor engine is comprised of a plurality of application processor modules operating in parallel.

24. The system of claim 22 wherein the distributed interconnection is a switch fabric.

25. The system of claim 22 wherein the network interface engine comprises at least one network processor.

26. A method of operating a network connectable content delivery system, comprising:

providing a network interface processor engine comprising at least one network processor, the network interface processor engine configured to be couple to a network;

providing a second processor engine;

providing a storage processor engine, the storage processor engine configured to be coupled to a storage system;

coupling the network interface processor engine, the second processor engine and the storage processor engine to each other through a distributed interconnection;

assigning the first, second, and storage processor engines separate types of tasks; and

accelerating content delivery from the storage processor engine to the network.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein the accelerating step comprises the network interface processor engine, the second engine and the storage processor engine operating in parallel to perform the separate tasks.

28. The method of claim 27 wherein the second processor engine is an application processor engine, the accelerating step further comprises providing content from the storage processor engine to the network through a content delivery path that by-passes the application processor engine.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein the accelerating step further comprises the network processor processing data packets received from the network and replacing one or more of the protocol layers of the data packets with contextually meaningful identifiers.

30. The method of claim 29 wherein the accelerating step further comprises operating a plurality of processor modules in parallel within at least on the network interface engine, the second processor engine or the storage processor engine.

31. The method of claim 30 wherein the second processor engine is an application processor engine.

32. The method of claim 31 wherein the application processor engine is comprised of a plurality of application processor modules.

33. The method of claim 32 wherein the storage processor engine is comprised of a plurality of storage processor modules.

34. The method of claim 26 wherein the accelerating step further comprises operating a plurality of processor modules in parallel within at least on the network interface engine, the second processor engine or the storage processor engine.

35. The method of claim 34 wherein the second processor engine is an application processor engine.

36. The method of claim 35 wherein the application processor engine is comprised of a plurality of application processor modules.

37. The method of claim 36 wherein the storage processor engine is comprised of a plurality of storage processor modules.

38. The method of claim 26 wherein the second processor engine is an application processor engine, the accelerating step further comprises providing content from the storage processor engine to the network through a content delivery path that by-passes the application processor engine.

39. The method of claim 38, wherein the accelerating step further comprises the network processor processing data packets received from the network and replacing one or more of the protocol layers of the data packets with contextually meaningful identifiers.

40. The method of claim 26, wherein the accelerating step further comprises the network processor processing data packets received from the network and replacing one or more of the protocol layers of the data packets with contextually meaningful identifiers.

41. The method of claim 26 wherein the accelerating step further comprises the distributed interconnection having fixed latencies.

42. The method of claim 41 wherein the distributed interconnection is a switch fabric.

43. The method of claim 26 wherein the accelerating step further comprises off-loading at least some protocol processing from the storage processor engine and the second processor engine.

44. The method of claim 43, wherein the second processor engine is an application processor engine.

45. The method of claim 44 wherein the second processor engine is an application processor engine, the accelerating step further comprises providing content from the storage processor engine to the network through a content delivery path that by-passes the application processor engine.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein the accelerating step further comprises the network processor processing data packets received from the network and replacing one or more of the protocol layers of the data packets with contextually meaningful identifiers.

47. The method of claim 44, wherein the accelerating step further comprises off-loading at least some system management functions from the application processor engine.

48. The method of claim 47, further comprising providing a system management processor engine to perform at least some of the system management functions.

49. The method of claim 26, the accelerating step further comprising off-loading at least some system management functions from the second processor engine and the storage processor engine.

50. The method of claim 49, further comprising providing a system management processor engine to perform at least some of the system management functions.