CONTENT DELIVERING SYSTEM, SERVER, AND CONTENT DELIVERING METHOD

• US 20080201484A1
• Filed: 12/31/2007
• Published: 08/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Sano, Takeshi, Takase, Masaaki, Maeda, Jun, Fukuda, Kenichi
• Granted Patent: US 7,882,248 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/232
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1014 based on the content of a request
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1055 involving connection limits involving dynamic management of active down- or uploading connections H04L67/1085
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A receiver receives from a client, a participation request indicating that a delivery of a content is desired. An affiliated group-determining unit determines of which group corresponding to the attribute content the attribute of the user, included in the participation request is affiliated. When the other client corresponds to the same desired content and the same affiliated group as that of the participation request source client, and when the other client is already registered in a client database (DB), an access point-deciding unit decides the registered client as a access point of the participation request source client. When the other client is not registered in the client DB, the access point-deciding unit decides a delivering server as the access point of the participation request source client.

Claims

1. A content delivering system that delivers a content to a client through a peer-to-peer streaming, the content delivering system comprising:

a receiver that receives a request for content delivery from the client;

a determining unit that determines, according to an attribute corresponding to the source client of the request received by the receiver, an affiliated group of the source client;

a storage unit that stores therein data related to the source client, the data including data of the affiliated group determined by the determining unit;

a deciding unit that decides, based on whether other client affiliated to the affiliated group determined by the determining unit is already registered in the storage unit, an access point of the source client for the content delivery; and

,

a notifying unit that notifies the source client the access point decided by the deciding unit.

2. The content delivering system according to claim 1, wherein the deciding unit decides a delivering server that delivers the content as the access point of the source client, when the other client affiliated to the affiliated group determined by the determining unit is not registered in the storage unit.

3. The content delivering system according to claim 2, wherein the delivering server includes

a delivery request receiver that receives from the source client a delivery request requesting delivery of the desired content,

a retriever that retrieves an attribute content that differs for an attribute of each group and that corresponds to the affiliated group of the source client, and

a transmitter that transmits to the source client the content and the attribute content, the content being requested through the delivery request received by the delivery request receiver, the attribute content being retrieved by the retriever.

4. The content delivering system according to claim 3, wherein the retriever further includes an enquiring unit that enquires of the attribute content corresponding to the affiliated group of the source client, when the delivery request receiver receives the delivery request.

5. The content delivering system according to claim 3, wherein the retriever retrieves the attribute content that is identified by identification data included in the delivery request received by the delivery request receiver.

6. The content delivering system according to claim 1, wherein the deciding unit decides the other client as the access point of the source client, when the other client affiliated to the affiliated group determined by the determining unit is registered in the storage unit.

7. The content delivering system according to claim 6, wherein the deciding unit decides the other client as the access point of the source client, when a process load of the other client is less than a predetermined standard.

8. The content delivering system according to claim 6, wherein the deciding unit decides the registered client as the access point of the source client, when a geographical distance between the other client and the source client is less than a predetermined distance.

9. The content delivering system according to claim 1, wherein the storage unit establishes a correspondence between an address of the source client and the attribute, the affiliated group, and the attribute content corresponding to the affiliated group, and stores the correspondence.

10. The content delivering system according to claim 9, wherein the storage unit adds and stores an address of the decided access point, after the deciding unit decides the access point of the source client.

11. The content delivering system according to claim 1, wherein the determining unit determines the affiliated group based on at least one of an age, a gender, and an address of a user of the source client.

12. A server that delivers a content to a client through a peer-to-peer streaming, the server comprising:

a receiver that receives a request for content delivery from the client;

a determining unit that determines, according to an attribute corresponding to the source client of the request received by the receiver, an affiliated group of the source client;

a storage unit that stores data related to the source client, the data including data of the affiliated group determined by the determining unit;

a deciding unit that decides, based on whether other client affiliated to the affiliated group determined by the determining unit is already registered in the storage unit, an access point of the source client for the content delivery; and

a notifying unit that notifies the source client the access point decided by the deciding unit.

13. A content delivering method for delivering a content to a client through a peer-to-peer streaming, the content delivering method comprising:

receiving a request for content delivery from the client;

determining, according to an attribute corresponding to the source client of the received request, an affiliated group of the source client;

registering, in a database, data related to the source client, the data including data of the affiliated group;

deciding, based on whether other client affiliated to the affiliated group is already registered in the database, an access point of the source client for the content delivery; and

notifying the source client the access point decided.