VIRTUAL PEER FOR A CONTENT SHARING SYSTEM

• US 20080080392A1
• Filed: 09/29/2006
• Published: 04/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qurio Holdings Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Qurio Holdings Incorporated
• Inventors: Walsh, Richard J., Amidon, Christopher M., Issa, Alfredo C., Evans, James
• Granted Patent: US 8,554,827 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/254
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4541 Directories for service discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1053 with pre-configuration of logical or physical connections with a determined number of other peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1093 Some peer nodes performing special functions

Abstract

The present invention relates to a virtual peer for a peer-to-peer (P2P) content sharing system. In general, the virtual peer is a logical construct enabling a number of virtual peer members to appear as a single peer node in the P2P content sharing system. In operation, a sponsoring agent creates the virtual peer and registers the virtual peer with the P2P network. Once registered, the virtual peer appears as a new peer node in the P2P network. In order to provide efficient content sharing, the sponsoring agent operates to obtain metadata describing all or a portion of a number of digital assets shared by the virtual peer members and aggregate the metadata into a single collection of metadata, referred to herein as a metadata catalog, for the virtual peer and may cache all or a portion of the digital assets shared by the virtual peer members.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

forming a virtual peer comprising a plurality of virtual peer members each hosting digital assets, wherein the virtual peer is registered as a peer node in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network and a sponsoring agent operates as a communication end-point for the virtual peer in the P2P network;

obtaining metadata from the plurality of virtual peer members describing at least a portion of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members; and

aggregating the metadata to provide a metadata catalog for the virtual peer.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the sponsoring agent is hosted by a sponsoring node, and further comprising storing the metadata catalog at the sponsoring node.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining the metadata comprises obtaining metadata from the plurality of virtual peer members describing all of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining the metadata comprises obtaining metadata from the plurality of virtual peer members describing a select portion of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members corresponding to at least one desired metadata type.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining the metadata comprises obtaining metadata from the plurality of virtual peer members for a select subset of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising obtaining updates for the metadata from the plurality of virtual peer members.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein aggregating the metadata further comprises filtering the metadata based on at least one security rule.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein aggregating the metadata further comprises restructuring the metadata to provide a desired directory structure for the virtual peer.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

obtaining at least one of the digital assets hosted by one of the plurality of virtual peer members from the one of the plurality of virtual members according to a pre-caching scheme; and

storing the at least one of the digital assets in a digital asset cache associated with the sponsoring agent.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying a plurality of popular digital assets including at least one of the digital assets hosted by one of the plurality of virtual peer members;

obtaining the at least one of the digital assets hosted by the one of the virtual peer members from the one of the plurality of virtual peer members; and

storing the at least one of the digital assets in a digital asset cache associated with the sponsoring agent.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying a popular topic;

obtaining at least one of the digital assets hosted by one of the plurality of virtual peer members and related to the popular topic from the one of the plurality of virtual peer members; and

storing the at least one of the digital assets in a digital asset cache associated with the sponsoring agent.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying a popular keyword;

obtaining at least one of the digital assets hosted by one of the plurality of virtual peer members and associated with the popular keyword from the one of the plurality of virtual peer members; and

storing the at least one of the digital assets in a digital asset cache associated with the sponsoring agent.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein a plurality of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members are stored in a digital asset cache associated with the sponsoring agent, and further comprising:

detecting a group of digital assets from the plurality of digital assets that are duplicates; and

removing all but one of the group of digital assets from the digital asset cache.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the sponsoring agent maintains at least one sharing security rule for the virtual peer, the method further comprising:

receiving a request for one of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members; and

determining whether an owner of a requesting node providing the request is authorized to access the virtual peer based on the at least one sharing security rule.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the sponsoring agent maintains at least one sharing security rule for each of the plurality of virtual peer members, the method further comprising:

receiving a request for one of the digital assets hosted by one of the plurality of virtual peer members; and

determining whether an owner of a requesting node providing the request is authorized to access the one of the digital assets based on the at least one sharing security rule for the one of the plurality of virtual peer members.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a request for one of the digital assets hosted by one of the plurality of virtual peer members and capability information from a client; and

determining whether the client is authorized to access the one of the digital assets based on the capability information from the client.

17. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

generating a web feed for the virtual peer based on the metadata catalog; and

providing the web feed to at least one client.

18. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying digital assets that a guest is to be invited to consume based on a comparison of at least one invitation rule and the metadata catalog;

generating an invitation inviting the guest to consume the identified digital assets; and

providing the invitation to the guest.

20. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a request to modify the metadata in the metadata catalog for a select one of the digital assets;

determining whether an owner of a client providing the request is authorized to modify the metadata in the metadata catalog for the select one of the digital assets; and

if the owner of the client is authorized to modify the metadata, enabling the owner of the client to modify the metadata in the metadata catalog for the select one of the digital assets.

21. The method of claim 1 further comprising serving a content discovery request from the metadata catalog.

22. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

caching at least a portion of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members in a digital asset cache associated with the sponsoring agent; and

serving requests from the digital asset cache.

19. The method of 1 further comprising enabling a user of a client to modify metadata in the metadata catalog for a select one of the digital assets.

23. A sponsoring node for hosting a virtual peer in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network comprising:

a communication interface; and

a control system associated with the communication interface and adapted to;

form the virtual peer comprising a plurality of virtual peer members each hosting digital assets;

register the virtual peer as a peer node in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, the sponsoring node operating as a communication end-point for the virtual peer in the P2P network;

obtain metadata from the plurality of virtual peer members describing at least a portion of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members; and

aggregate the metadata to provide a metadata catalog for the virtual peer.

24. The sponsoring node of claim 23 wherein the metadata from the plurality of virtual peer members comprises metadata describing all of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members.

25. The sponsoring node of claim 23 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

cache a plurality of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members in a digital asset cache;

detect a group of digital assets from the plurality of digital assets that are duplicates; and

remove all but one of the group of digital assets from the digital asset cache.

26. The sponsoring node of claim 23 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

receive a request for one of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members; and

determine whether an owner of a requesting node providing the request is authorized to access the virtual peer based on at least one sharing security rule for the virtual peer.

27. The sponsoring node of claim 23 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

receive a request for one of the digital assets hosted by one of the plurality of virtual peer members; and

determine whether an owner of a requesting node providing the request is authorized to access the one of the digital assets based on at least one sharing security rule for the one of the plurality of virtual peer members.

28. The sponsoring node of claim 23 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

receive a request for one of the digital assets hosted by one of the plurality of virtual peer members and capability information from a client; and

determine whether the client is authorized to access the one of the digital assets based on a comparison of the capability information from the client and at least one content sharing rule.

29. The sponsoring node of claim 23 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

generate a web feed for the virtual peer based on the metadata catalog; and

provide the web feed to at least one client.

30. The sponsoring node of claim 23 wherein the control system is further adapted to enable a user of a client to modify metadata in the metadata catalog for a select one of the digital assets.

31. The sponsoring node of claim 23 wherein the control system is further adapted to serve a content discovery request from the metadata catalog.

32. The sponsoring node of claim 23 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

cache at least a portion of the digital assets hosted by the plurality of virtual peer members in a digital asset cache; and

serve requests from the digital asset cache.