File system and method for administrating storage space and bandwidth in a computer system serving media assets

• US 20080016220A1
• Filed: 05/11/2007
• Published: 01/17/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/28/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Espial Incorporated (Enghouse Systems Limited)
• Original Assignee: Espial Incorporated (Enghouse Systems Limited)
• Inventors: Horen, Robert, Singal, Sanjay
• Granted Patent: US 7,849,194 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/24 Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2312 Data placement on disk arrays data placement in general G06F3/0604
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/232 Content retrieval operation locally within server, e.g. reading video streams from disk arrays storage management G06F3/0604; details of querying and searching of video data from a database G06F16/739

Abstract

Method, computer program product and server computer system for use in a client server computer architecture. The server sends media assets over computer network to client computer and maintains file system organized into plurality of asset groups, each asset group comprising plurality of media assets, wherein media assets share storage medium bandwidth and storage space on server computer that is reserved for asset group to which plurality of media assets belong. An asset group placement policy module is provided that evaluates attributes of asset group to determine optimal placement of asset group within the file system of server computer system, avoiding replication of assets and spreading asset group across multiple file systems wherever possible. A media asset placement policy module is provided that evaluates asset bandwidth to determine optimal placement for asset and available resources and use this evaluation to distribute media assets within asset groups.

Claims

1. A method for administering storage space and storage bandwidth of media assets stored on a server computer system, the method comprising:

creating an asset group, the asset group providing shared storage space and storage bandwidth on a server computer system for media assets, the server computer system capable of connection to a computer network and communicating with a client computer system over the computer network;

calculating a resource quota, the resource quota specifying storage space and storage bandwidth available to the asset group;

assigning the asset group to at least one file system;

installing at least one media asset in the asset group; and

making the media asset available for transmission to the client computer system over the computer network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of installing comprises associating metadata with a media asset.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of installing comprises copying the media asset into a storage location.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating a resource quota comprises multiplying a value representing a maximum bit rate at which a media asset in the asset group may be played by a value representing a maximum number of assets in the asset group that may be played simultaneously.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein assigning the asset group comprises placing the asset group in a single file system without replicating media assets.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein installing assets comprises evaluating bandwidth for the media asset to determine in select an asset group in the media asset is placed.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of creating an asset group comprises:

defining a data structure that contains a list of pointers indicating storage locations of media assets stored in the asset group and values of attributes associated with the asset group;

determining a storage bandwidth requirement by calculating the attribute values;

assigning the asset group to a file system; and

storing media assets in accordance with the asset group.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of creating an asset group comprises:

specifying a maximum simultaneous playouts for asset group attribute, a maximum bit rate of the assets installed in asset group attribute, a guaranteed possible playouts attribute, and a resource quota attribute;

calculating the storage bandwidth component of the resource quota by multiplying together a maximum simultaneous playouts attribute, a maximum bit rate attribute, and a default guaranteed possible playouts attribute (DGPP);

assigning the asset group to the file system maintained on the server;

storing the media asset(s) in accordance with the asset group; and

defining a data structure that includes a list of pointers that contain values indicating the storage locations of the media assets stored in the asset group, as well as either pointers to values of the attributes or the attribute values themselves rather than pointers or a combination of the pointers and actual values.

9. A computer program product stored on a computer readable media and containing instructions, which, when executed by a computer, administers storage space and storage bandwidth of media assets stored on a server computer system, by:

creating an asset group, the asset group providing shared storage space and storage bandwidth on a server computer system for media assets, the server computer system capable of connection to a computer network and playing the media assets to a client computer system over the computer network;

calculating a resource quota, the resource quota specifying storage space and storage bandwidth available to the asset group;

assigning the asset group to at least one file system;

installing at least one media asset in the asset group; and

making the media asset available for transmission to the client computer system over the computer network.

10. A computer program product as in claim 9, wherein the creating or the asset group further includes:

specifying a maximum simultaneous playouts for asset group attribute, a maximum bit rate of the assets installed in asset group attribute, a guaranteed possible playouts attribute, and a resource quota attribute;

calculating the storage bandwidth component of the resource quota by multiplying together a maximum simultaneous playouts attribute, a maximum bit rate attribute, and a default guaranteed possible playouts attribute (DGPP);

assigning the asset group to the file system maintained on the server;

storing the media asset(s) in accordance with the asset group; and

defining a data structure that includes a list of pointers that contain values indicating the storage locations of the media assets stored in the asset group, as well as either pointers to values of the attributes or the attribute values themselves rather than pointers or a combination of the pointers and actual values.

11. A method for serving media assets by a server computer over a computer network having at least one client computer, the method characterized in that:

the server computer sends media assets over said computer network to said client computer; and

the server computer is coupled to at least one file system organized into at least one asset group, the or each asset group comprising at least one media asset, and the media asset sharing storage medium bandwidth and storage space on the server computer that is reserved for the asset group to which the media asset belongs.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein each media asset belongs to only one asset group.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the asset group is limited to a maximum number of simultaneous playouts for the media assets contained within the asset group and further comprises an attribute that designates the number of simultaneous playouts.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the asset group is limited to a maximum bit rate at which any single media asset belonging to the asset group can be played out, further comprising an attribute which indicates the maximum bit rate.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the asset group is associated with a guaranteed possible playouts value that guarantees the number of playouts from each asset belonging to the asset group assuming no other asset is being played out at the same time, further comprising an attribute which indicates the guaranteed possible playouts value.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising a default guaranteed possible playouts value.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising an asset group policy placement procedure that places an asset group within the file system.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the asset group policy procedure distributes the asset group across multiple file systems.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising a media asset placement policy procedure that places media assets within the asset group.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the media asset placement policy procedure places media assets within asset groups based on said reserved storage medium bandwidth and storage space.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the media asset placement policy procedure restricts the placement domain of the media asset to the asset group distribution of storage space and storage bandwidth.

22. The method of claim 11, wherein said media asset includes an asset selected from the set consisting of a audio, text, graphics, image, symbol, video, information item or token, and combinations thereof.

23. The method of claim 11, wherein said media asset comprises an audio, a video, or an audio-video media asset.

24. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one asset group comprises a plurality of asset groups.

25. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

administering storage space and storage bandwidth of media assets stored on the server computer, the administering including;

(i) creating the asset group, the asset group providing shared storage space and storage bandwidth on a server computer system for the media assets, the server computer capable of connection to the computer network and communicating with the client computer over the computer network;

(ii) assigning the asset group to at least one file system;

(iii) installing at least one media asset in the asset group; and

(iv) making the media asset available for transmission to the client computer system over the computer network.

26. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

calculating a resource quota specifying storage space and storage bandwidth available to the asset group.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the step of installing comprises associating metadata with a media asset.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein the step of installing comprises copying the media asset into a storage location.

29. The method of claim 26, wherein calculating a resource quota comprises multiplying a value representing a maximum bit rate at which a media asset in the asset group may be played by a value representing a maximum number of assets in the asset group that may be played simultaneously.

30. The method of claim 26, wherein assigning the asset group comprises placing the asset group in a single file system without replicating media assets.

31. The method of claim 26, wherein installing assets comprises evaluating bandwidth for the media asset to determine in select an asset group in the media asset is placed.

32. The method of claim 26, wherein said step of creating an asset group further comprises:

defining a data structure that contains a list of pointers indicating storage locations of media assets stored in the asset group and values of attributes associated with the asset group;

determining a storage bandwidth requirement by calculating the attribute values;

assigning the asset group to a file system; and

storing media assets in accordance with the asset group.

33. A file system for use with a computer in a computer network, the file system characterized in that:

the file system is organized into a plurality of asset groups;

each asset group comprising at least one media asset;

the media assets within an asset group sharing a quota of system resources including storage medium bandwidth resources and storage medium space resources on the computer that is reserved for the asset group on a per-asset-group basis rather than on a per-asset basis; and

the asset group and the at least one media asset in the asset group being placed within the at least one file system according to (i) an asset group placement policy for placing the asset group which determines the resource quota for the asset group, and (ii) a media asset placement policy for placing the media asset within the placed asset group, which in combination guaranteeing a specified number of simultaneous playouts for each media asset within the asset group.

34. A file system as in claim 33, wherein the file system is further characterized in that the asset group is created by:

specifying a maximum simultaneous playouts for asset group attribute, a maximum bit rate of the assets installed in asset group attribute, a guaranteed possible playouts attribute, and a resource quota attribute;

calculating the storage bandwidth component of the resource quota by multiplying together a maximum simultaneous playouts attribute, a maximum bit rate attribute, and a default guaranteed possible playouts attribute (DGPP);

assigning the asset group to the file system maintained on the server;

storing the media asset(s) in accordance with the asset group; and

defining a data structure that includes a list of pointers that contain values indicating the storage locations of the media assets stored in the asset group, as well as either pointers to values of the attributes or the attribute values themselves rather than pointers or a combination of the pointers and actual values.

35. A file system as in claim 34 wherein the computer includes a server computer coupled with the file system, the computer network has at least one client computer, and the server computer sends media assets over said computer network to said client computer.