Method and system for providing on-demand content delivery for an origin server

• US 20040083283A1
• Filed: 10/15/2002
• Published: 04/29/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Sundaram, Ravi, Rahul, Hariharan S.
• Granted Patent: US 7,136,922 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• 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 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4552 Lookup mechanisms between a plurality of directories; Synchronisation of directories, e.g. metadirectories
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1034 Reaction to server failures by a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

An infrastructure “insurance” mechanism enables a Web site to fail over to a content delivery network (CDN) upon a given occurrence at the site. Upon such occurrence, at least some portion of the site'"'"'s content is served preferentially from the CDN so that end users that desire the content can still get it, even if the content is not then available from the origin site. In operation, content requests are serviced from the site in the usual manner, e.g., by resolving DNS queries to the site'"'"'s IP address, until detection of the given occurrence. Thereafter, DNS queries are managed by a CDN dynamic DNS-based request routing mechanism so that such queries are resolved to optimal CDN edge servers. After the event that caused the occurrence has passed, control of the site'"'"'s DNS may be returned from the CDN back to the origin server'"'"'s DNS mechanism.

Claims

1. A method of protecting an origin server having a local name server associated therewith, comprising:

determining whether a given condition exists at the origin server;

if the given condition exists, having the local name server redirect a DNS query to a content delivery network (CDN) domain, the DNS query being associated with given content normally hosted on the origin server; and

resolving the content delivery network (CDN) domain to identify an IP address of a CDN server;

delivering the given content from the CDN server.

2. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the additional DNS queries are redirected to the CDN network for as long as the given condition exists at the origin server.

3. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the given content is an object, or a markup language page having a set of one or more embedded objects.

4. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the given condition is a site failure.

5. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the given condition is an occurrence of excess demand at the site.

6. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the given condition is a receipt of a request for content that cannot be served from the site.

7. A method operative at an origin server having a name server associated therewith, wherein queries to the name server are associated with a content provider domain, comprising:

monitoring the origin server for occurrence of a given condition;

upon occurrence of the given condition, redirecting queries associated with the content provider domain to a domain associated with a content delivery network (CDN);

determining whether the given condition has ceased; and

if the given condition has ceased, managing queries associated with the content provider domain without redirection to the domain associated with the content provider network (CDN).

8. A method of enabling a content provider to obtain access to a content delivery network (CDN) on demand, where the content provider operates one or more origin servers at sites that may be mirrored, comprising:

responsive to an end user'"'"'s local name server making a query to a domain associated with the content provider, resolving the query to an IP address associated with a given origin server; and

upon occurrence of a given condition, selectively resolving additional queries to the domain associated with the content provider to a domain associated with the CDN.

9. The method as described in claim 8 wherein the additional queries continued to be resolved to the domain associated with the CDN until the given condition has ceased.

10. The method as described in claim 8 wherein the query is resolved to an IP address of a mirrored site.

11. The method as described in claim 8 wherein the given condition is a site failure.

12. The method as described in claim 8 wherein the given condition is an occurrence of excess demand at the site.

13. The method as described in claim 8 wherein the given condition is a receipt of a request for content that cannot be served from the site.