Method and system for constraining server usage in a distributed network

• US 20080215748A1
• Filed: 05/12/2008
• Published: 09/04/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Lauzac, Sylvain, Kagan, Marty, Lipkovitz, Eisar
• Granted Patent: US 7,987,252 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/232
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/122 by diverting traffic away from congested entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5651 Reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data

Abstract

A “velvet rope” mechanism that enables customers of a shared distributed network (such as a content delivery network) needing to control their costs to control the amount of traffic that is served via the shared network. A given server in the distributed network identifies when a customer is about to exceed a bandwidth quota as a rate (bursting) or for a given billing period (e.g., total megabytes (MB) served for a given period) and provides a means for taking a given action based on this information. Typically, the action taken would result in a reduction in traffic served so that the customer can constrain its usage of the shared network to a given budget value.

Claims

1. A method of constraining bandwidth consumption in a distributed network, comprising:

providing a content delivery network having a set of content servers that are shared among a set of participating content providers;

providing a secure configuration portal through which each of a set of content providers manages its traffic independent of any content provider;

having a content provider of the set of participating content providers use the secure configuration portion to identify a bandwidth threshold and an action to take to reduce bandwidth consumption if the bandwidth threshold is met;

at a content server to which an end user has been directed, determining whether the bandwidth threshold has been met over a given time period, and

if the bandwidth threshold has been met over the given time period, enforcing the action to reduce the bandwidth consumption for the content provider.

2. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the action is enforced at one or more content servers in the content delivery network from which content provider content is served.

3. The method as described in claim 2 wherein the content is HTTP content.

4. The method as described in claim 2 wherein the content is a data stream.

5. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the step of determining whether the bandwidth threshold has been met includes:

obtaining given usage statistics; and

comparing the usage statistics with the bandwidth threshold.

6. The method as described in claim 5 wherein the given usage statistics comprise month-to-date bandwidth usage for the content provider.

7. The method as described in claim 5 wherein the given usage statistics comprises current bandwidth usage for the content provider.