ACCELERATING PEER-TO-PEER CONTENT DISTRIBUTION

• US 20090182815A1
• Filed: 12/13/2007
• Published: 07/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NBC Universal Media LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Wang, Xi, Czechowski, Joseph III, Carothers, Christopher Duane, Smith, William David II
• Granted Patent: US 8,606,846 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1012 based on compliance of requirements or conditions with available server resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1021 based on client or server locations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1023 based on a hash applied to IP addresses or costs
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1025 Dynamic adaptation of the criteria on which the server selection is based
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1031 Controlling of the operation of servers by a load balancer, e.g. adding or removing servers that serve requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1072 Discovery involving ranked list compilation of candidate peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1076 Resource dissemination mechanisms or network resource keeping policies for optimal resource availability in the overlay network

Abstract

The acceleration of peer-to-peer downloads of content files wherein a tracker performs a condition based peer selection that is dynamically adjustable. A further feature relates to the use of enhanced message scheme for communications. One embodiment is a system in a swarm having at least one origin seed capable of at least initially storing the content files with at least one tracker maintaining a list of peers wherein the tracker uses at least one dynamically adjusting peer selection algorithm to generate a condition based peer-list and provides the condition based peer-list to a requesting peer.

Claims

1. A system for acceleration of peer-to-peer download of a content file in a swarm, the system comprising:

at least one origin seed at least initially part of the system and storing said content file;

at least one tracker maintaining a list of peers in said swarm;

at least one requesting peer participating in said swarm; and

wherein said tracker uses at least one dynamically adjusting peer selection algorithm to generate a condition based peer-list and provides said condition based peer-list to said requesting peer.

2. The system according to claim 1, further comprising an enhanced message scheme for communicating between at least said tracker and said origin seed.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein said tracker optionally provides peer information about said requesting peer to said origin seed using said enhanced messages.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein said origin seed is said requesting peer and said tracker provides said condition based peer-list to said origin seed.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein said content file is comprised of a plurality of pieces and said origin seed distributes said pieces to said peers in said swarm, and wherein the origin seed is removed from the system after all of said pieces for said content file are distributed.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein said condition based peer-list is based on at least one of a swarm condition and a requesting peer condition.

7. The system according to claim 6, wherein said swarm condition is selected from the group consisting of:

number of non-seeds in said swarm, number of non-origin seeds in said swarm, number of origin seeds in said swarm, rate of change of number of non-seeds in said swarm, rate of change of number of non-origin seeds in said swarm, rate of change of number of origin seeds in said swarm, historical patterns of prior usage, and combinations thereof.

8. The system according to claim 6, wherein said requesting peer condition is selected from the group consisting of:

type of the peer requesting said peer-list, age of the peer, amount of content lacking by the peer, amount of content received by the peer, amount of content transmitted by the peer, network locality of the peer, geographic locality of the peer, percent of content lacking by the peer, total number of times the peer has requested said peer-list, the elapsed time since last request by the peer for said peer-list, upload rate of the peer, download rate of the peer, adjusting the peer selection based on a device type, and combinations thereof.

9. The system according to claim 1 wherein said swarm is part of a structured overlay network.

10. The system according to claim 1 further comprising an origin scout participating in said swarm and providing at least one of swarm information and peer information to said tracker using an enhanced message scheme.

11. The system according to claim 1, wherein said tracker is a centralized tracker server for handling at least one swarm.

12. The system according to claim 1, wherein said condition based peer-list is operational with legacy peer-to-peer systems.

13. The system according to claim 1, further comprising a client information storage maintaining at least one of peer IP addresses and ports, geographic location, and network locality, and security credentials.

14. A method for producing a selective peer-list for a swarm, comprising:

processing a peer-list for a plurality of peers in said swarm;

receiving a peer-list request from a requesting peer;

determining at least one of a condition of said swarm and a condition of said requesting peer;

dynamically configuring a peer selection algorithm based on at least one said condition and generating the selective peer-list; and

communicating said selective peer-list to said at least one requesting peer.

15. The method according to claim 14, further comprising communicating peer information about said requesting peer to said origin seed using an enhanced message scheme.

16. The method according to claim 14, further comprising generating an origin seed peer-list and communicating said origin seed peer-list to said origin seed.

17. The method according to claim 14, further comprising using said enhanced messages for controlling origin seed functions, wherein said origin seed functions are selected from at least one of the group consisting of:

sizing of origin seed upload bandwidth, sizing of origin seed tracker re-request interval, limiting connection time between origin seeds and peers, refusing connections from other peers, and cycling through content during upload.

18. The method according to claim 14, wherein said generating of said selective peer-list is based on at least one of the condition of said swarm and the condition of said requesting peer.

19. The method according to claim 14, wherein said generating of said selective peer-list is based on at least one of the group consisting of:

biasing said peer selection toward younger peers, biasing said peer selection toward older peers, omitting at least some origin seeds from the peer-list generated for a peer, omitting at least some seeds from the peer-list generated for a seed, biasing the peer selection for the peer-list based on network locality, biasing the peer selection for the peer-list based on geographic locality, and generating an artificial non-empty peer-list for any non-origin seed when a ratio of seeds to peers in the swarm exceeds a programmable threshold, and adjusting the peer selection based on a device type.

20. A computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions adapted to perform the method of claim 14.

21. The method according to claim 14, further comprising at least one of encrypting of content files, encrypting peer communications, authenticating peer software, and authenticating a client.

22. The method according to claim 14, wherein said configuring the peer selection algorithm includes at least one of setting at least one programmable parameter and selecting a peer selection algorithm.

23. A system for acceleration of content file downloads in swarms, the system comprising:

a plurality of non-origin peers and initially at least one enhanced origin seed in an overlay network of peers;

at least one enhanced distributed tracker peer for generating selective peer-lists; and

at least one enhanced message protocol for communicating between at least said origin seed and said distributed tracker peer.

24. The system according to claim 23, wherein said enhanced distributed tracker peer generates said selective peer-lists based upon at least one of a condition of said non-origin peers and a condition of said swarms.

25. An enhanced tracker for facilitating downloading of content among a plurality of peers participating in a swarm, comprising:

a means for obtaining a list of said peers;

a means for generating a condition based peer-list for a requesting peer based upon at least one of a condition of said swarm and a condition of said requesting peer;

a means for transmitting said selective peer-list to said requesting peer; and

an enhanced message communication means for communicating between at least said origin seed and said enhanced tracker.

26. The enhanced tracker according to claim 25, wherein said tracker includes a software module having programmable parameters and at least one dynamically configurable peer selection algorithm.

27. The enhanced tracker according to claim 25, wherein said means for processing said selective peer-list is based on at least one of the group consisting of:

biasing said peer selection toward younger peers, biasing said peer selection toward older peers, omitting at least some origin seeds from the peer-list generated for a peer, omitting at least some seeds from the peer-list generated for a seed, biasing the peer selection for the peer-list based on network locality, biasing the peer selection for the peer-list based on geographic locality, generating an artificial non-empty peer-list for any non-origin seed when a ratio of seeds to peers in the swarm exceeds a programmable threshold, and adjusting the peer selection based on a device type.