Method of Downloading Large Size Data to a Large Number of Networked Client Machines from a Single Server

• US 20100306311A1
• Filed: 05/27/2010
• Published: 12/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thales SA
• Original Assignee: Thales SA
• Inventors: Chaignon, Nicolas, Harambillet, Pierre, Mahe, Aubin
• Granted Patent: US 8,762,449 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/82 the transmission system being the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4625 Single bridge functionality, e.g. connection of two networks over a single bridge
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]

Abstract

The present invention exploits the multiple-broadcast capabilities of networks associated with a reliable connection-oriented protocol. The inventive method allows a file to be transferred only once. The data, which represent a large volume of information, use multiple-broadcast channels, whereas the interchanges relating to the control of the quality of the communication use a reliable medium in connected mode. In order to eliminate the unnecessary transfers (network) and activity (server and client), a calculation worked out from all of the file data is performed to identify it definitely.

Claims

1. A method of downloading large size data to a large number of networked client machines from a single server, comprising transmitting the large size files over a multiple-broadcast medium, and the control information over a reliable point-to-point link, wherein the control information further comprises information relating to the control of the quality of reception of the files, information data relating to the files transmitted by the server, the reception balance of each connected client, the validity of the local reconstruction of the file, and of the client acknowledgements.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the broadcast protocol over multiple-broadcast media is of MCastFTP type.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the multiple broadcasting of the files is done in packets.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the server transmits, for each file, its MD5-type checksum.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein, for each file sent, the clients reconstruct the file from the packets received, establish a running balance of the data losses from the file and acknowledge receipt of each file to the server.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the clients that have not acknowledged receipt to the server within an allotted time are eliminated from this transfer, but are contacted for the next transfer.

7. The method according to claim 5, wherein, when the server receives at least one connection request from a client asking for a file to be sent, before sending this file, the server sends a notification of the imminent start of transmission containing the name of the file, its size and its checksum.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein each client acknowledges in two different ways:

either it already has this file, in the version of the server, and in this case it acknowledges in the negative, or it does not have it, or not in the requisite version, and it acknowledges positively.

9. A system for downloading large size data to a large number of networked client machines from a single server, wherein the system implements the method according to claim 1.