SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DIGITAL MEDIA SERVER LOAD BALANCING
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for load balancing a plurality of servers is disclosed. In a preferred embodiment, a plurality of servers in a video-on-demand or other multi-server system are divided into one or more load-balancing groups. Each server preferably maintains state information concerning other servers in its load-balancing group including information concerning content maintained and served by each server in the group. Changes in a server'"'"'s content status or other state information are preferably proactively delivered to other servers in the group. When a content request is received by any server in a load-balancing group, it evaluates the request in accordance with a specified algorithm to determine whether it should deliver the requested content itself or redirect the request to another server in its group. In a preferred embodiment, this determination is a function of information in the server'"'"'s state table.
-
Citations
40 Claims
-
1-20. -20. (canceled)
-
21. A method for servicing a request for content at a designated director server for a load balancing group, comprising:
-
receiving the request at the director server;
determining whether or not the content is present on the director server; and
responsively selecting a server to service the request such that;
the director selects itself to service the request when the requested content is present on the director; and
the director selects another server within the load balancing group to service the request when the requested content is not present on the director, said other server having stored thereon the content, the director selecting the other server using a state table comprising parametric information for servers in the load balancing group, wherein said parametric information comprises information identifying assets maintained on each server in the load balancing group. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
-
-
31. A computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions for performing the following steps:
-
receiving the request for content at a designated director server for a load balancing group;
determining whether or not the content is present on the director server; and
responsively selecting a server to service the request such that;
the director selects itself to service the request when the requested content is present on the director; and
the director selects another server within the load balancing group to service the request when the requested content is not present on the director, said other server having stored thereon the content, the director using a state table comprising parametric information for servers in the load balancing group, wherein said parametric information comprises information identifying assets maintained on each server in the load balancing group. - View Dependent Claims (32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40)
-
Specification