SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MULTI-PERSPECTIVE OPTIMIZATION OF DATA TRANSFERS IN HETEROGENEOUS NETWORKS SUCH AS THE INTERNET

• US 20070245010A1
• Filed: 03/23/2007
• Published: 10/18/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Itiva Digital Media Corp.
• Original Assignee: Itiva Digital Media Corp.
• Inventors: Taylor, Thomas, Sterling, Shawn, Arn, Robert, Balogh, Jonathon, McMichael, Justin, Matrosovs, Kevin
• Application Number:
  US11/690,773
• Publication Number:
  US 20070245010A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0823 characterised by the purposes of a change of settings, e.g. optimising configuration for enhancing reliability for optimising operational conditions of wireless networks H04W24/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• 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 67/101 based on network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1023 based on a hash applied to IP addresses or costs
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1038 Load balancing arrangements to avoid a single path through a load balancer

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for optimizing network data transfers using multiple classes of network resources and network intelligence gathered and integrated by a multi-perspective network optimizer so as to maximize the performance, scalability and commercial controllability and minimize the cost of network data transfers in heterogeneous networks such as the internet.

Claims

1. A system for optimizing the utilization of heterogeneous network resources in which data sets are divided into a plurality of multiple subsets that are stored in multiple parts of the system which includes:

(a) a plurality of end-user client computers capable of requesting data from multiple resources on a network and reassembling pieces of data received in response to the requested data into a complete data set;

(b) a plurality of classes of network resources to service data transfers to said end-user client computers;

(c) one or more network coordination servers that coordinate access of end-user client computers to said plurality of classes of network resources;

(d) one or more sources of network information which is accessible to one or more network coordination servers by making requests for information to the source that are formatted to be compatible with the source;

(e) wherein said plurality of classes of network resources include;

(i) source servers controlled by the service provider on which data is stored for transmission to end users; and

(ii) peer resources which are storage, or network transfer, or computational resources, or a combination thereof, provided by said end-user client computers.

3. A system according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of source servers is deployed without any resources in the Peer resource class or the Network Infrastructure class, the deployment including:

(a) a plurality of end-user client computers capable of requesting data from multiple network resources and reassembling subsets of data into a complete data set;

(b) one or more network coordination servers that coordinate access of said end-user client computers to multiple network resources to service data transfers to end-user client computers;

(c) one or more source of network information which is accessible to one or more network coordination servers by making requests for information that are formatted to be compatible with the source.

5. The system of claim 1, 2 or 3 wherein end-user client computers contain software functions that enable simultaneous communication with multiple source servers or network infrastructure servers according to a plurality of protocols including HTTP, FTP, SMTP, IRC, RTP, RTSP, RTMP and streaming and other protocols which may be implemented on a plurality of source servers.

6. The system of claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein said end-user client computers contain software functions that enable reassembling data subsets into complete data sets according to protocols which include HTTP, FTP, SMTP, IRC, RTP, RTSP, RTMP, MMS and file transfer, streaming and other application protocols which may be implemented in the media player or other application to which the client is transferring data.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein said protocol for transferring data to a media player or other application is the same as the protocol for transferring data to a source server or network infrastructure server.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein said protocol for transferring data to a media player or other application is different from the protocol for transferring data to a source server or network infrastructure server.

9. The system of claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein said end-user client computers contain software functions that enable them to download code that allows them to execute new protocols, codecs, and transfer algorithms to interact with diverse server resources in the network.

10. The system of claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein said end-user client computers contain software functions to re-order data subsets that have been transmitted in a scrambled order by a Digital Rights Management system and assemble the data subsets in the order of an original data set and transfer the data set to a media player or other application upon presentation of an authorized DRM key.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein said end-user client computers contain software functions to store and optionally encrypt subsets of information in the scrambled order transmitted by a Digital Rights Management system and to re-transmit the subsets in scrambled order when requested by an external peer request, but re-order and assemble the data subsets in the order of the original data set and transfer the data set to a media player or other application upon presentation of an authorized DRM key.

12. The system of claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein said end-user client computers and source servers contain software to log data requests, data receptions and transmission rates and interactions between the data transfer functions and data requests from applications, including a media player application and return said log data to said one or more network coordination servers.

13. The system of claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein said end-user client computers are one or more dedicated-function electronic devices with computing capability, including:

set-top boxes that couple an end-user television or monitor to a network, home network gateway devices that serve to distribute data from a network to devices in the end-user'"'"'s home, consumer electronics devices, including televisions, radios and other information presentation devices with embedded network connections and computing functions, or other home computing devices which combine network connectivity and computing capability.

14. The system of claim 1, 2 or 3 wherein said one or more of the coordination servers include a subsystem for gathering information from said source servers concerning availability and performance of the server relative to serving requests from different ones of said end-user client computers in the system so that said subsystem may optimize data transfers on the basis of performance.

15. The system of claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein said one or more of the coordination servers include a subsystem for gathering information from client computers concerning availability and performance of the client relative to providing peer resources from the client to other clients in the system so that said subsystem may optimize data transfers on the basis of performance.

16. The system of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein said one or more network coordination servers include a publishing subsystem which controls and manages entry and withdrawal of data into said source servers.

17. The system of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein said one or more network coordination servers include a costing system which provides information on the cost of transfers of data from different data sources of the system so that said coordination server can optimize the choice of data sources based on cost.

18. The system of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein said one or more network coordination servers include a pricing system which provides information on the pricing of transfers of data to customers of the system so that the coordination server can optimize the choice of data sources based on cost relative to a price agreed by a customer.

19. The system of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein said one or more network coordination servers include a DRM subsystem which manages key distribution and data subset order scrambling of data where publishers of the data choose to limit access to the data to end-users that have acquired a DRM key.

20. The system of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein said one or more source of network information which is accessible to one or more network coordination servers is manual information entered into said system by a human operator

a The system of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein said one or more source of network information is an automated query to an element of network infrastructure accessible to formatted external queries

b The system of claim 21, wherein said one or more source of network information is a Border Gateway Protocol server.

23. The system of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein one or more of a class of said source servers controlled by a service operator is an HTTP server, an FTP server, an IRC server, an SMTP server, or a server of another publicly defined file transfer protocol.

24. The system of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein one or more of a class of said source servers controlled by a service operator is an RTP, RTSP server, or other publicly defined streaming protocol.

25. The system of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein one or more of a class of said source servers controlled by a service operator is a server executing a privately defined file transfer protocol.

26. The system of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein one or more of a class of said source servers controlled by the service operator is a streaming server executing a privately defined streaming protocol, including Adobe RTMP, Microsoft MMS, or other privately defined streaming protocol.

57. A method of manufacture of any of the component parts of the systems described in claims 1 to 31 whereby the software functions of the coordination server, or the source servers, or the system client software of the end-user client computers are pre-installed in the process of assembly and testing.

58. A method of manufacture of any of the component parts of the systems described in claims 1 to 31 whereby the software functions of the coordination server, or the source servers, or the system client software of the end-user client computers are pre-installed after assembly and testing in the process of distribution in advance of sale to the end-user.

59. A method of manufacture of any of the component parts of the systems described in claims 1 to 31 whereby the software functions of the coordination server, or the source servers, or the system client software of the end-user client computers are integrated with the hardware elements in the field after the hardware is deployed in the field.

60. A method of manufacture of any of the component parts of the systems described in claims 1 to 31 whereby the software functions of the coordination server, or the source servers, or the system client software of the end-user client computers are provided by reduction to custom hardware components or sub-systems such as a co-processor board plugging into the bus of the respective computer systems, or a custom integrated circuit, or as firmware, microcode or physical circuitry on CPU of the local or remote computer.

61. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a computer software embodying the software functions of the coordination server, or the source servers, or the system client software of the end-user client computers of the systems described in claims 1 to 31.

2. A system for optimizing the utilization of heterogeneous network resources in which data sets are divided into a plurality of subsets that are stored in multiple parts of the system infrastructure which includes:

(a) a plurality of end-user client computers capable of requesting data from multiple resources on a network and reassembling subsets of data received in response to a data request into a complete data set;

(b) a plurality of classes of network resources to service data transfers to end-user client computers;

(c) one or more network coordination servers that coordinate access of end-user client computers to said plurality of classes of network resources;

(d) one or more source of network information which is accessible to one or more network coordination servers by making requests for information to the source that are formatted to be compatible with the source;

wherein said plurality of classes of network resources include;

(i) source servers controlled by a service provider on which data is stored for transmission to end users

(ii) peer resources which are storage, or network transfer, or computational resources, or a combination thereof, provided by end-users'"'"' client computers;

(iii) network infrastructure servers which are not controlled by the service provider, but which may be utilized to optimize the overall network by servicing storage and retrieval requests, where such requests are constrained to abide by rules, interfaces and protocols of the network infrastructure servers.

4. A system according to claim 2, wherein a plurality of source servers is deployed without any resources in the Peer resource class or the Network Infrastructure class, the deployment including:

(a) a plurality of end-user client computers capable of requesting data from multiple network resources and reassembling subsets of data into a complete data set;

(b) one or more network coordination servers that coordinate access of said end-user client computers to multiple network resources to service data transfers to end-user client computers;

(c) one or more source of network information which is accessible to one or more network coordination servers by making requests for information that are formatted to be compatible with the source.

27. The system of claim 2, wherein one or more of a class of network infrastructure servers is an HTTP server, an FTP server, an IRC server, an SMTP server, or a server of another publicly defined file transfer protocol.

28. The system of claim 2, wherein one or more of a class of said network infrastructure servers is an RTP, RTSP, or other publicly defined streaming protocol.

29. The system of claim 2, wherein one or more of a class of network infrastructure servers is a server executing a privately defined file transfer protocol.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein one or more of a class of said network infrastructure servers is a streaming server executing a privately defined streaming protocol such as Adobe RTMP, or Microsoft MMS, or other privately defined streaming protocol.

31. A method for optimizing the utilization of heterogeneous network resources in the transmission of data sets to end-user client computers whereby,

(a) dividing a data set into a plurality of subsets that are stored on a plurality of classes of network resources, including, at least, a class of one or more source servers under the control of a service provider and a class consisting of a plurality of end-user client computers,

(b) generating a metadata description of the relation of the subsets to a complete data set and storing said metadata description on a coordination server, including the addresses for retrieval of the subsets and an address for the metadata description,

(c) providing to an outside application such as a browser or media player or other application running on an end-user client computer that wishes to retrieve the data set, the address for the metadata description, such that, when the address is invoked by the outside application, client software running on the end-user client computer directs the request to the coordination server, which returns the metadata description and a set of recommended addresses for retrieval of subsets of the data set to the requesting client computer,

(d) requesting data subsets by the client computer according to the protocol type of the resource to which the request is made to a plurality of classes of network resources, and retrieving the data subsets to the end-user client computer,

(e) re-assembling the data subsets and transferring them to the media player or other application according to the protocol and/or data format required by the receiving media player or other player or other application, upon request from a media player or other application running on the end-user client computer,

(e) storing the data sub-sets in persistent storage on the end-user client computer, and

(g) upon request from another resource in the network, including another end-user client computer, retrieving and transmitting requested data sub-sets to the requesting resource, including another end-user client computer, according to the protocol of the request.

34. The method of claim 31, 32 or 33, wherein storage of data sub-sets on source servers is achieved by:

processing the original data set to divide it into data subsets according to the protocol and data format of each target source server,

creating a metadata descriptive file for the data set, including an address for the whole data set and a set of addresses associated with each data subset,

uploading the data subsets and metadata file to the target source servers.

37. The method of claim 31 and 32, where storage of data subsets on end-user client computers is achieved by:

sending a command from the coordination server to the client software on the end-user'"'"'s computer to cause it to request the data set or subset thereby forcing a transfer without the end-user'"'"'s intervention in order to force distribution of the metadata file and data subsets associated with that request, and

storing the metadata file and data subsets associated with that request in persistent storage on the receiving end-user client computer.

39. The method of claim 31 to 32, wherein the coordination server, from data concerning the cost of transfers from each network resource of the system which stores the requested data set or subsets:

(a) creates a list of resources that have the lowest aggregate cost of transfer for each individual request from an end-user and;

(b) returns the list of suggested sources for data subsets to the requesting end-user client computer.

40. The method of claim 31, 32 or 33, wherein said the coordination server, from data concerning the anticipated performance of transfers from each network resource of the system which stores the requested data set or subsets;

creates a list of resources ranked as to performance in transferring data sub-sets to the individual end-user'"'"'s client computer and

returns a list of suggested high performance sources for transferring the requested data sub-sets to the requesting end-user client computer.

41. The method of claim 31 and 32, where the coordination server, from data concerning the anticipated performance of transfers from each source server of the system which stores the requested data set or subsets;

(a) creates a list of source server resources ranked as to performance in transferring data sub-sets to the individual end-user'"'"'s client computer and

(b) returns a list of suggested high performance sources for transferring the requested data subsets to the requesting end-user client computer; and

(c) client software on the end-user client computer independently calculates a list of peer resources ranked as to performance in transferring data subsets to the end-user'"'"'s client computer, and

(d) merges the list of high performance server sources with the list of high performance peer sources to create a final list of suggested high performance sources for transferring the requested data subsets to the requesting end-user client computer.

42. The method of claim 31, 32 or 33, wherein the coordination server, from data concerning the anticipated availability of transfers from each network resource of the system which stores the requested data set;

(a) creates a list of resources ranked as to availability in transferring data subsets to the individual end-user'"'"'s client computer and

(b) returns a list of suggested under utilized or high availability sources for transferring the requested data subsets to the requesting end-user client computer in order to load balance the system, use resources efficiently and not overload any resource in the system.

43. The method of claim 31 or 32, wherein the coordination server, from data concerning the anticipated availability of transfers from each source server of the system which stores the requested data set;

(a) Creates a list of source server resources ranked as to availability in transferring data subsets to the individual end-user'"'"'s client computer and

(b) returns a list of suggested under utilized or high availability source servers for transferring the requested data subsets to the requesting end-user client computer; and

client software on the end-user client computer independently calculates a list of peer resources ranked as to availability in transferring data subsets to the end-user'"'"'s client computer and

merges the list of available server sources with the list of available peer sources to create a final list of suggested high availability or under utilized sources for transferring the requested data subsets to the requesting end-user client computer in order to load balance the system and use resources efficiently and not overload any resource in the system.

44. The method of claim 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 or 43, wherein the coordination server, for each end-user request, creates a list of preferred sources that merges cost, performance and availability of resources to create a source list that delivers a balance of highest performance, at lowest cost, with the most balanced and efficient use of overall network resources.

46. The method of claim 31, 32 or 33, where the coordination server implements a Digital Rights Management system by ordering the transmission of data subsets in a pseudo-random sequence according to an encryption key, so that:

when the data subset sequence is received by an end-user client computer the order of the data subsets can only be discovered by application of the appropriate key to the metadata description that is transferred along with the data subsets, and after application of the key, the end user client computer, upon request from a media player or other application running on the end-user client computer, re-assembles the data subsets in the original data set order and transfers them to the media player or other application according to the protocol and/or data format required by the receiving media player or other application.

47. The method of claim 46, where the coordination server implements a key management protocol between the coordination server and the end-user client computer.

48. The method of claim 47, where the end-user client computer stores the received data subsets in local persistent storage, maintaining the pseudo-random sequencing of data subsets, until:

(a) requested by a local application such as a media player or other application to transfer the data set, whereupon, on presentation of a correct authorized key, it transfers the data sub-sets in the correct order, or,

(b) on being requested by a local or remote application, according to the correct protocol, but without an authorized key, it transfers the data subsets in the same pseudo-random sequence as they were originally received, along with an encrypted metadata description of the data subsets, or,

(c) on being requested by a local or remote application, according to the correct protocol, but without an authorized key, it transfers the data subsets in a new pseudo-random sequence according to a new encryption key, along with an encrypted metadata description of the data sub-sets.

49. The method of claim 31, 32 or 33, wherein one or more of the class of network infrastructure servers not under the control of the service provider is a cacheing proxy server, whereby a request to a target source for a data subset is passed through an intervening proxy server, which, if it is capable, according to the protocol of the request, will process the request and return the requested data subset on behalf of the target resource, and wherein

(a) said coordination server shapes the request according to the protocol of the target resource and the intervening proxy server, and beyond simple compliance with the protocol, further shapes the request to add such directives as to assure that the data sub-set will be cached by the intervening proxy server if the data sub-set is not already in the cache of the intervening proxy server, according to the following steps;

(b) said coordination server shapes the request to not include, even if they may be valid directives or information of the protocol, directives and information that typically-configured cacheing proxy servers of the particular protocol would interpret as directives or heuristics to not cache the requested data subsets, and

(c) said coordination server shapes the size of the data subsets to correspond to the size of data that is most likely to be cached by a typically-configured cacheing proxy of the particular protocol, and

(d) the coordination server shapes the request and the address of the requested data set or sub-sets so that when the data set or sub-sets are cached in response to a request from one target resource of the system for a data set or sub-set, then,

(e) a subsequent request to another source for the same data set or subsets will appear to be a request for the same data set or subset, notwithstanding that it was delivered from a different resource in the system, and hence will be returned from the cache rather than the target resource from which it is being requested.

32. A method for optimizing the utilization of heterogeneous network resources in the transmission of data sets to end-user client computers comprising,

(a) dividing a data set into a plurality of subsets that are stored on a plurality of classes of network resources, including, at least, a class of one or more source servers under the control of a service provider and a class consisting of one or more network infrastructure servers not under the control of the service provider and optionally a class consisting of peer resources on end-user client computers, where

(b) requesting storage and retrieval of data sub-sets on said servers will be executed if the requests conform to the protocol and data formats of the server, notwithstanding that the sources in the class of network infrastructure servers are not under the control of the service provider, so that protocol and format routines may be executed on a coordination server and the data sub-sets stored on the network infrastructure servers are available to retrieval requests,

(c) generating and storing on a coordination server, a metadata description of the relation of the sub-sets to the complete data set including the addresses for retrieval of the sub-sets, the protocol and data format requirements of each server and an address for the metadata description,

(c) providing the address for the metadata description to an outside application such as a browser or media player or other application running on a end-user client computer that wishes to retrieve the data set,

(e) directing the request to said coordination server by client software running on the end-user client computer when the address is invoked by the outside application, which coordination server in response to the request, returns the metadata description and a set of recommended addresses for retrieval of subsets of the data set to the requesting client computer,

forming requests to source server class resources through its client software, and network infrastructure class resources and optionally peer resource class resources for the data subsets according to the protocol type of the source to which the request is made, and retrieving the returned data subsets to the end-user client computer,

(g) re-assembling the data-subsets and transferring them to the media player or other application according to the protocol and/or data format required by the receiving media player or other application, upon request from a media player or other application running on the end-user client computer,

(h) storing the data subsets in persistent storage on the end-user client computer, and

(i) upon request from another resource in the network, including another end-user client computer, retrieving and transmitting requested data sub-sets to the requesting resource, including another end-user client computer, according to the protocol of the request.

35. The method of claim 32, 33 or 34, where storage of data subsets on source servers is achieved by:

at each target source server, processing the original data set to divide it into data subsets according to the protocol and data format that particular source server, and

at each target source server, creating a metadata descriptive file for the data set, including an address for the whole data set and a set of addresses associated with each data subset.

36. The method of claim 32 and 33, where storage of data subsets on end-user client computers is achieved by;

after an end-user has requested a data set and has received the metadata file and data subsets associated with that request,

store the metadata and data subsets associated with that request in persistent storage on the receiving end-user client computer.

38. The method of claim 32, 33 or 34, where the coordination server controls each introduction of a new data set with a set of steps to:

(a) authenticate the user'"'"'s right to publish the data set into the system and to initiate any other procedures relative to the data set;

(b) provide status feedback on the state and history of each data set published;

(c) delete or inactivate any data set.

45. The method of claim 32, 33 or 34, where the methods of claims 40, 41, 42, 43 or 44 are merged and the coordination server:

for each end user request, consults metadata fields for the data set which record the publisher'"'"'s specification of a desired priority of cost versus performance

creates a list of preferred sources that represents the specified trade-off between cost and performance, and

merges that list with a list of availability of resources to create a source list that delivers the specified performance versus cost with the most balanced and efficient use of overall network resources.

32-1. A method for optimizing the utilization of heterogeneous network resources in the transmission of data sets to end-user client computers, comprising:

(a) dividing a data set into a plurality of subsets that are stored on a plurality of source server resources,

(b) generating a metadata description of the relation of the sub sets to the complete data set and storing said metadata description on a coordination server, including addresses for retrieval of the subsets and an address for the metadata description,

(c) providing the address for the metadata description to an outside application such as a browser or media player or other application running on a end-user client computer that wishes to retrieve the data set,

(d) directing the request to the coordination server, by means of client software running on the end-user computer, when the address is invoked by the outside application, wherein said coordination server returns the metadata description and a set of recommended addresses for retrieval of subsets of the data set to the requesting client computer,

(e) forming requests to a plurality of source servers for the data subsets according to the protocol type of the source server to which the request is made through the requesting client computer'"'"'s client software, and retrieving the data subsets to the end-user client computer,

(f) re-assembling the data-subsets and transferring them to the media player or other application according to the protocol and/or data format required by the receiving media player or other application.

50. The method of claim 50, wherein the cacheing proxy server is an HTTP cache proxy server, and said coordination server shapes all suggested resource requests so that the request:

(a) will include and properly set all HTTP directives necessary for allowing cacheing of a data set or data sub-set, including, for example, but not limited to, a Date or ETag header and Expires header, and,

(b) does not include directives that would prevent cacheing of a data set or subset, including, for example but not limited to, no cache, no store, private, max-age=0, s-maxage-0, and

(c) does not, include strings in the request URI that would indicate dynamic content or other class of content that would typically be blocked from cacheing by the proxy cache, including, for example, but not limited to the strings ?, &

, cgi-bin, php, pl, isp, jsp, py

(d) limits the size of data subsets to a size that typical HTTP proxy caches will not reject as too large for cache efficiency and reject for cacheing,

51. The method of claim 50, where the cacheing proxy server is an HTTP cache proxy server,

(a) the coordination server shapes all suggested resource requests so that the request implements a URI naming scheme that allows cacheing, including, for example, but not limited to, a URI scheme that gives the host address of the target resource, followed by a path to the content, such as:

GET http;

//<

host IP address>

/data set/data subset,

Eg. GET http;

//192.168.99.99/content/part, and optionally,

in the end-user client computer software, implements a procedure to ignore the host address in the request

This allows a client to make a request to another host, such as a peer, but a standard proxy server, without the skip host address procedure, will be constrained to serve the request if the data set or subset is in cache, or return to the original host address to refresh the cache if the data set or data subset is not present. This method introduces a limitation in the system to a single designated host source.

52. The method of claim 51, where the cacheing proxy server is an HTTP cache proxy server,

the coordination server shapes all suggested resource requests so that the request implements a URI naming scheme that allows cacheing, including, for example, but not limited to, a URI scheme that gives the host DNS name instead of host IP address of the target source, followed by a path to the content, such as:

GET http;

//<

host DNS name>

/data set/data subset,

Eg. GET http;

//host1.itiva.net/content/part, and optionally,

In the end-user client computer software, implements a procedure to ignore the DNS in the request.

53. The method of claim 52, where the cacheing proxy server is an HTTP cache proxy server, with the introduction a modification of the software of the source server that is the designated host to create a modification of a standard HTTP server which:

parses out the content part of the request URI, content/piece, and passes that as a request to a source designated by the coordination server.

54. The method of claim 51, where the cacheing proxy server is an HTTP cache proxy server, and

(a) the coordination server shapes all resource requests so that the request implements a URI naming scheme that allows cacheing, including, for example, but not limited to, a URI scheme that assigns a DNS name to the content data set or subset instead of to the host source, such as,

GET http:

//<

data set name>

.<

network domain name>

/<

path>

,

Eg. GET http;

//movie1.itiva.net/piece1,

thereby allowing a DNS server in the system to resolve the request and direct it to any resource in the system, unbinding the content from particular host sources.

55. The method of claim 54, where the naming scheme is extended to include more information about the class of sources that should be addressed by a particular request,

(a) the coordination server shapes all suggested resource requests so that the request the request implements a URI naming scheme that allows cacheing, including, for example, but not limited to, a URI scheme that assigns an extended DNS name to the content data set or sub-set including desired source class or other information, such as,

GET http:

//<

source class>

.<

data set name>

.<

network domain name>

/<

path>

,

Eg GET http;

//sourceservers.movie1.itiva.net/piece1,

which allows a DNS server in the system to resolve the request and direct it to any source within a specific class of sources in the system.

56. The method of claim 50, 51, 52, 53, 53, 54 or 55, where the cacheing proxy server is an HTTP cache proxy server, and further flexibility of sizing data transfers can by achieved by breaking data subsets into smaller data sub-subset request units by utilization of HTTP range requests, such that,

A request for a data subset can be combined with multiple requests for data sub-subsets within the data subset

described are provided by reduction to custom hardware components or sub-systems such as a co-processor board plugging into the bus of the respective computer systems, or a custom integrated circuit, or as firmware, microcode or physical circuitry on CPU of the local or remote computer.