Methods and systems for broadcast-like effect using fractional-storage servers

• US 20100094963A1
• Filed: 10/14/2009
• Published: 04/15/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xenogenic Development Limited Liability Company (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Patentvc Limited
• Inventors: Thieberger, Gil, Zuckerman, Gal
• Granted Patent: US 7,840,680 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

Methods and systems for broadcast-like effect using fractional-storage servers that receive and store erasure-coded fragments, which are generated on-the-fly from segments of streaming content arriving in real-time. Shortly thereafter, assembling devices obtain the fragments and reconstruct the segments at a rate that allows approximately real-time presentation of the streaming content including the segments.

Claims

1. ) A method for broadcast-like content streaming, comprising:

encoding approximately sequential segments of content into erasure-coded fragments, shortly after the segments are made available by a streaming source;

shortly thereafter, distributing the fragments for storage on a plurality of fractional-storage servers; and

shortly thereafter, obtaining the fragments by an assembling device using a fragment pull protocol;

wherein obtaining the fragments occurs while fragments associated with subsequent segments of the content are being encoded and distributed.

2. ) The method of claim 1, wherein the streaming content comprises video, and obtaining the fragments comprises obtaining the fragments at a rate that at least allows continuous on-the-fly reconstruction and playing of the stream.

3. ) The method of claim 1, wherein the servers are fractional-storage CDN servers, and the fragment pull protocol is a fragment pull protocol for high latency.

4. ) The method of claim 3, further comprising reconstructing the segments from the obtained erasure-coded fragments at approximately the same rate used to generate the original segments, whereby the reconstructed segments can be played in real-time.

5. ) The method of claim 3, wherein obtaining the erasure-coded fragments comprises obtaining the erasure-coded fragments associated with segments that are marked as available for retrieval and not attempting to obtain the erasure-coded fragments associated with segments that are not marked as available for retrieval.

6. ) The method of claim 1, wherein the erasure-coding is rateless-coding potentially resulting in fragments having a limitless redundancy factor.

7. ) A method for creating a broadcast-like effect, comprising:

generating erasure-coded fragments on-the-fly from segments of streaming content;

distributing the fragments in real-time to a plurality of fractional-storage servers; and

obtaining the fragments in real-time from the servers.

8. ) The method of claim 7, wherein the step of obtaining the fragments in real-time comprises obtaining the fragments using a fragment pull protocol for high latency at an average rate that enables reconstructing the segments from the obtained fragments at a rate approximately equals the corresponding rate at which the streaming content is played.

9. ) The method of claim 7, wherein the servers are fractional-storage CDN servers, the fragments are obtained using a fragment pull protocol for high latency, and further comprising reconstructing the segments from the obtained fragments.

10. ) The method of claim 9, wherein the fractional-storage CDN servers are located close to or on the Internet backbone, and the average rate at which the segments are reconstructed approximately equals the average rate at which the segments are received when generating the fragments from the segments.

11. ) The method of claim 7, whereby segments are reconstructed from the obtained fragments;

wherein the step of obtaining the fragments in real-time comprises obtaining the fragments using a fragment pull protocol at a rate that approximately maintains a fixed distance in segments between the recently reconstructed segment and the segment whose fragments were most recently distributed to the servers.

12. ) The method of claim 7, wherein the erasure-coded fragments support source-selection diversity;

and further comprising generating the segments on-the-fly approximately sequentially from the streaming content.

13. ) The method of claim 7, wherein the servers are fractional-storage CDN servers, and wherein the step of obtaining the fragments in real-time comprises obtaining the fragments associated with segments that are marked as available for retrieval and not attempting to obtain the fragments associated with segments that are not marked as available for retrieval.

14. ) A system comprising:

fractional-storage servers configured to receive and store erasure-coded fragments, which are generated on-the-fly from segments of streaming content arriving in real-time; and

assembling devices configured to obtain the fragments and reconstruct the segments shortly after the fragments are received by the fractional-storage servers, at a rate that allows approximately real-time presentation of the streaming content comprising the segments.

15. ) The system of claim 14, wherein the servers are fractional-storage CDN servers, and the assembling devices use a fragment pull protocol to obtain the fragments.

16. ) The system of claim 15, wherein the rate at which the segments are reconstructed approximately equals the rate at which the segments arrive.

17. ) The system of claim 15, wherein the rate at which the segments are reconstructed is determined according to the rate at which content frames are played, and the erasure-coded fragments support source-selection diversity.

18. ) The system of claim 15, wherein shortly after is less than 15 seconds after the fragments are received by the fractional-storage servers.

19. ) The system of claim 14, further comprising indications of whether the fragments are available to be obtained by the assembling devices, whereby the assembling devices are configured to obtain only the fragments indicated as available.

20. ) The system of claim 14, wherein the system amplification factor (Bout/Bin) may approach the ratio (Tout/(R*Bstream)), where Bout is the total average output bandwidth at which the fragments are obtained by the assembling devices, Bin is the total average bandwidth needed to deliver the fragments for storage on the servers, Tout is the total aggregated outgoing bandwidth of all servers, R is the redundancy factor, and Bstream is the average bandwidth of the streaming content.