REALTIME MEDIA DISTRIBUTION IN A P2P NETWORK

• US 20090248872A1
• Filed: 03/27/2007
• Published: 10/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: RayV, Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Levy, Maxim, Shem-Tov, Ofer, Luzzatti, Omer, Levy, Oleg
• Granted Patent: US 7,945,694 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1048 Departure or maintenance mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1085 involving dynamic management of active down- or uploading connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1093 Some peer nodes performing special functions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/632 using a connection between clients on a wide area network, e.g. setting up a peer-to-peer communication via Internet for retrieving video segments from the hard-disk of other client devices broadcast-related systems characterised by transmission among terminal devices H04H60/80; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

Nodes in a realtime p2p media distribution can act in the role of ‘Amplifiers’ to increase the total available bandwidth in the network and thus to improve the quality of the realtime media consumed by the viewers. Examples of such media consumptions are TV channels over the Internet, video on demand films and files, and media files downloaded to be consumed at a later time. Amplifiers are added to the p2p swarm by a mechanism that discovers the need for supplemental bandwidth in the swarm and orders nodes to join the swarm in the role of amplifiers. The amplifiers'"'"' main goal is to maximize the amount of bandwidth they supply (upload) to the swarm while minimizing the amount of bandwidth they consume (download).

Claims

1-22. -22. (canceled)

23. A system fog enabling a live transmission of media in a distributed network of nodes that includes swarm nodes;

the swarm nodes include consumer nodes that are configured to process transmitted media;

the system is configured to dynamically identify a need for additional bandwidth required for the live transmission of said media to said consumer nodes, and in response thereto to allocate to the swarm nodes at least one amplifier node for providing the additional bandwidth, said at least one amplifier node configured to download less than it uploads, and to facilitate the additional bandwidth for the use of said consumer nodes without consuming the live transmitted media within the swarm, thereby enabling the live transmission of said media.

24. The system according to claim 23, wherein the system is configured to dynamically identify the need for additional bandwidth using centralized means.

25. The system according to claim 24, wherein said centralized means includes at least one server node.

26. The system according to claim 23, wherein the system is configured to dynamically identify the need for additional bandwidth in a distributed fashion.

27. The system according to claim 24, wherein said need is triggered by a node suffering from lack of sufficient bandwidth.

28. The system according to claim 24, wherein said need is triggered by said centralized means by monitoring the network of portion thereof.

29. The system according to claim 23, further comprising means configured to use criterion for determining the conditions for at least one amplifier to join to the swarm network.

30. The system according to claim 23, further comprising means configured to use criterion for determining the conditions that at least one amplifier leaves the swarm network.

31. The system according to claim 23, further configured to allocate at least one bootstrap amplifier provides an additional amount of bandwidth for guaranteeing a shorter duration from connection to actual viewing, in respect of potential media consumers.

32. The system according to claim 23, wherein each amplifier is capable of downloading given segments of media that are needed by the consumers, in order to provide a qualitative service to the consumers of the content.

33. The system according to claim 32, wherein said given segments for downloading are decided according to at least one of the following parameters:

(i) type of the media to be retrieved, (ii) rare segments in the network, (iii) missing parts needed by the consumers.

34. The system according to claim 23, wherein each amplifier node is configured to operate in order to maximize the amplifier'"'"'s gain defined as upload bandwidth minus the download bandwidth.

35. The system according to claim 23, wherein each amplifier node is configured to maximize amplifier'"'"'s gain by increasing and decreasing downloaded bandwidth rate limit in small steps till the maximum Gain is reached.

36. The system according to claim 23, wherein said amplifier node is configured to maximize amplifier'"'"'s gain by favoring download of segments that are a mathematical combination of at least two actual media segments and that can be uploaded to other nodes.

37. The system according to claim 36, wherein the mathematical combination being the XOR function.

38. The system according to claim 24, wherein number of additional required amplifiers complies with the following equation:

missing bandwidth for download equals to or smaller than sum of the Gains (upload minus download) of all the additional amplifiers.

39. A method for enabling a live transmission of media in a distributed network of nodes that includes swarm nodes;

the swarm nodes include consumer nodes that are configured to process transmitted media;

the method comprising;

(a) dynamically identifying a need for additional bandwidth required for the live transmission of said media to said consumer nodes;

(b) allocating to the swarm nodes at least one amplifier node for providing the additional bandwidth, said at least one amplifier node configured to download less than it uploads, thereby facilitating the additional bandwidth for the use of said consumer nodes, without consuming the live transmitted media within the swarm, thereby enabling the live transmission of said media.

40. A computer program comprising computer program code means for performing all the steps of claim 39 when said program is run on a computer.

41. An amplifier node being connectable to a distributed network of nodes that includes swarm nodes;

said amplifier node is configured to download less than it uploads;

in response to a command said amplifier node is configured to supply an additional bandwidth for live transmission of a media to at least one other node of said swarm nodes, without consuming the live transmitted media within the swarm, thereby said amplifier node facilitates real-time transmission of said media in said distributed network of nodes to said consumer nodes.

42. The amplifier node of claim 41 wherein said command is capable of being triggered when said at least one other node is lacking said additional bandwidth, required for the transmission of said media.

43. The amplifier node of claim 41 wherein said other node is a customer node.

44. The amplifier node of claim 41 wherein said other node is an amplifier node.