Method and system for fault tolerant media streaming over the Internet
First Claim
1. A method of fault tolerant delivery of live media content, the content being available in a given media format as a stream of data packets, comprising:
- receiving the stream at each of one or more data centers;
from at least one data center, outputting a copy of each packet in the stream to a set of remote server regions, wherein a remove server region comprises a set of one or more media servers associated with the given media format;
at a remote server region, feeding the stream to each of the set of one or more media servers associated with the given media format so that each of the set of one or more media servers in the remote server region is available to provide the stream of data packets;
within the remote server region, at each of the one or more media servers in the set of media servers, receiving the stream of data packets; and
in response to each end user request that is directed, via a content delivery network (CDN) domain name server, to one of the set of media servers in the remote server region that has received the stream of data packets, outputting the stream of data packets from a given media server in the remote server region.
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Abstract
A replication process provides fault tolerance for a continuous media stream in a computer network. In one embodiment, the original or source signal is sent to several splitters which, in turn, each make copies of the signal and send the copies into a second layer of devices, which are referred to as “concentrators.” A given concentrator receives as input one or more copies of the source signal. In a preferred embodiment, a given concentrator receives two copies of the source signal from at least two different splitters. The concentrators process the incoming streaming signal copies, for example, by merging them into a single or composite copy of the original source signal according to a given processing algorithm. The output of a given concentrator may then be fed into a splitter, with the process then being repeated if desired to make an arbitrary large number of copies of the signal. At the end of the replication process, the output of a splitter or a concentrator is fed directly or indirectly to an end user. The replication process is fault-tolerant, and thus the end user'"'"'s signal is not interrupted regardless of signal or equipment problems within the distribution mechanism.
35 Citations
6 Claims
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1. A method of fault tolerant delivery of live media content, the content being available in a given media format as a stream of data packets, comprising:
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receiving the stream at each of one or more data centers;
from at least one data center, outputting a copy of each packet in the stream to a set of remote server regions, wherein a remove server region comprises a set of one or more media servers associated with the given media format;
at a remote server region, feeding the stream to each of the set of one or more media servers associated with the given media format so that each of the set of one or more media servers in the remote server region is available to provide the stream of data packets;
within the remote server region, at each of the one or more media servers in the set of media servers, receiving the stream of data packets; and
in response to each end user request that is directed, via a content delivery network (CDN) domain name server, to one of the set of media servers in the remote server region that has received the stream of data packets, outputting the stream of data packets from a given media server in the remote server region. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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Specification