METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR FEDERATED OVER-THE-TOP CONTENT DELIVERY

• US 20120240176A1
• Filed: 03/16/2012
• Published: 09/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Azuki Systems, Inc (Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson)
• Inventors: Ma, Kevin J., Nair, Raj, Wu, Chin-Cheng, Hickey, Robert, Biagini, Daniel
• Granted Patent: US 8,589,996 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/114
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2181 comprising remotely distributed storage units, e.g. when movies are replicated over a plurality of video servers distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23103 using load balancing strategies, e.g. by placing or distributing content on different disks, different memories or different servers storage management G06F3/0604; allocation of resources considering the load in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/505; techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system G06F9/5083; access to distributed or replicated servers, e.g. load balancing, in data networks H04L67/1001
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23106 involving caching operations prefetching while addressing of a memory level in which the access to the desired data or data block requires associative addressing means within memory systems or architectures G06F12/0862; caching at an intermediate stage in a data network H04L67/568
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23439 for generating different versions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2347 involving video stream encryption
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4622 Retrieving content or additional data from different sources, e.g. from a broadcast channel and the Internet web site content organization and management for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/958; transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82; stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services including data channel over packet-switching network H04L12/1859
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6175 involving transmission via Internet broadcast-related systems characterised by the transmission system being the Internet H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64738 Monitoring network characteristics, e.g. bandwidth, congestion level data switched network analysis H04L41/14; monitoring functioning in data switched networks H04L43/0817; flow control in packet networks H04L47/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

A method is provided for managing over-the-top delivery of content through a plurality of content delivery networks (CDN). The method provided works transparently with standard HTTP servers supporting an initial request for content from a client to a first preferred CDN. If the first CDN does not have the content, the method includes provisions for the first CDN to acquire the content from a second CDN, or for the client to request the content from a second CDN directly. A system is also specified for implementing a client and server infrastructure in accordance with the provisions of the method.

Claims

1. A method for distributing content to a diverse set of mobile client devices, comprising:

acquiring the content at a server and transforming the acquired content into transformed content having a form suitable for rendering on a plurality of client devices;

writing the transformed content to a plurality of content delivery networks;

prioritizing the content delivery networks for delivering content to a client;

selecting a preferred content delivery network and an alternate content delivery network based on the prioritizing; and

providing identifications of the preferred content delivery network and alternative content delivery network to the client to enable the client to retrieve the content therefrom.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein transforming the content includes transcoding video content into a plurality of different bitrates, frame rates, resolutions, codecs, and container formats.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the content delivery networks include authoritative content delivery networks receiving the transformed content directly from the server without involvement of any intervening content distribution network.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

pushing content to an origin server, hosted by one of the content delivery networks, from which the content is distributed to content delivery network edge servers.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

pushing content to an origin server, hosted outside all the content delivery networks, from which a content delivery network may pull the content for distribution to content delivery network edge servers.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

granting permission to the authoritative content delivery networks to distribute the content to downstream content delivery networks referred to as surrogate content delivery networks.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

granting permission to one or more of the surrogate content delivery networks to distribute the content to further downstream content delivery networks referred to as cascaded content delivery networks.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein content requests from client devices are received via the HTTP protocol, in a local HTTP server.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising processing a unique identifier in an HTTP request for the content the client wishes to retrieve, and/or processing location information for the client in an HTTP request for the content the client wishes to retrieve.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein processing location information includes gleaning carrier and/or country information from a source network address of the HTTP request, and or gleaning carrier, country, and/or cell or router location information from HTTP headers inserted in the HTTP request by a carrier.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

processing device information selected from operating system, screen resolution, protocol support, and codec support in an HTTP request for the content the client wishes to retrieve.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

processing subscriber information in an HTTP request for the content the client wishes to retrieve.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein processing subscriber information includes gleaning subscriber identification information from HTTP headers inserted into the HTTP request by a carrier, and/or gleaning subscriber identification information from a source network address of the HTTP request.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein selection of the preferred and alternate content delivery networks is based first on the availability of compatible content encodings for the client device.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

using physical locality, based on geo-location information, as an additional basis for prioritizing of the preferred and alternate content delivery networks.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

using temporal locality, based on previously reported client retrieval analytics information, as an additional basis for prioritizing of the preferred and alternate content delivery networks.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

using business rules pertaining to one or more business-related conditions of service as an additional basis for prioritizing of the preferred and alternate content delivery networks.

18. The method of claim 1, further including receiving and processing content retrieval analytics messages from the client, the content retrieval analytics messages containing information describing performance of either the preferred content delivery network or the alternate content delivery network during retrieval of the content by the client.

19. A workflow management system for controlling distribution of content to a diverse set of mobile client devices, comprising:

computer hardware including one or more processors, memory, input/output circuitry and one or more data buses for data transfer therebetween;

wherein the memory stores computer program instructions operative to cause the workflow management system to perform a method including;

acquiring the content and transforming the acquired content into transformed content having a form suitable for rendering on a plurality of client devices;

writing the transformed content to a plurality of content delivery networks;

prioritizing the content delivery networks for delivering content to a client;

selecting a preferred content delivery network and an alternate content delivery network based on the prioritizing; and

providing identifications of the preferred content delivery network and alternative content delivery network to the client to enable the client to retrieve the content therefrom.

20. The workflow management system of claim 19, wherein transforming the content includes transcoding video content into a plurality of different bitrates, frame rates, resolutions, codecs, and container formats.

21. The workflow management system of claim 19, wherein the content delivery networks include authoritative content delivery networks receiving the transformed content directly from the server without involvement of any intervening content distribution network.

22. The workflow management system of claim 21, wherein the method further includes pushing content to an origin server, hosted by one of the content delivery networks, from which the content is distributed to content delivery network edge servers.

23. The workflow management system of claim 21, wherein the method further includes pushing content to an origin server, hosted outside all the content delivery networks, from which a content delivery network may pull the content for distribution to content delivery network edge servers.

24. The workflow management system of claim 21, wherein the method further includes granting permission to the authoritative content delivery networks to distribute the content to downstream content delivery networks referred to as surrogate content delivery networks.

25. The workflow management system of claim 24, wherein the method further includes granting permission to one or more of the surrogate content delivery networks to distribute the content to further downstream content delivery networks referred to as cascaded content delivery networks.

26. The workflow management system of claim 19, wherein content requests from client devices are received via the HTTP protocol, in a local HTTP server.

27. The workflow management system of claim 26, wherein the method further includes processing a unique identifier in an HTTP request for the content the client wishes to retrieve, and/or processing location information for the client in an HTTP request for the content the client wishes to retrieve.

28. The workflow management system of claim 27, wherein processing location information includes gleaning carrier and/or country information from a source network address of the HTTP request, and/or gleaning carrier, country, and/or cell or router location information from HTTP headers inserted in the HTTP request by a carrier.

29. The workflow management system of claim 26, wherein the method further includes processing device information selected from operating system, screen resolution, protocol support, and codec support in an HTTP request for the content the client wishes to retrieve.

30. The workflow management system of claim 26, wherein the method further includes processing subscriber information in an HTTP request for the content the client wishes to retrieve.

31. The workflow management system of claim 30, wherein processing subscriber information includes gleaning subscriber identification information from HTTP headers inserted into the HTTP request by a carrier, and/or gleaning subscriber identification information from a source network address of the HTTP request.

32. The workflow management system of claim 19, wherein selection of the preferred and alternate content delivery networks is based first on the availability of compatible content encodings for the client device.

33. The workflow management system of claim 32, wherein the method further includes using physical locality, based on geo-location information, as an additional basis for prioritizing of the preferred and alternate content delivery networks.

34. The workflow management system of claim 32, wherein the method further includes using temporal locality, based on previously reported client retrieval analytics information, as an additional basis for prioritizing of the preferred and alternate content delivery networks.

35. The workflow management system of claim 32, wherein the method further includes using business rules pertaining to one or more business-related conditions of service as an additional basis for prioritizing of the preferred and alternate content delivery networks.

36. The workflow management system of claim 19, wherein the method further includes receiving and processing content retrieval analytics messages from the client, the content retrieval analytics messages containing information describing performance of either the preferred content delivery network or the alternate content delivery network during retrieval of the content by the client.