METHOD FOR BROADCASTING A PIECE OF CONTENT IN AN IT NETWORK

• US 20150058420A1
• Filed: 04/04/2013
• Published: 02/26/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/05/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: EasyBroadcast
• Original Assignee: Trident Media Guard TMG
• Inventors: Rouibia, Soufiane, Casalta, Bastien
• Granted Patent: US 10,601,910 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1063 Discovery through centralising entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/108 characterised by resources being split in blocks or fragments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1091 Interfacing with client-server systems or between P2P systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416

Abstract

A method for broadcasting a piece of content in an IT network including a content server having the content to be broadcast, and a plurality of clients seeking to retrieve the content, method in which the content is served in client/server mode to at least one client in a format allowing the subsequent broadcasting of same in P2P mode.

Claims

1. A method for broadcasting a piece of content in an IT network including a content server having the piece of content to be broadcast, and a plurality of clients seeking to retrieve said piece of content, method wherein the piece of content is served in client/server mode to at least one client in a format allowing its subsequent broadcast in P2P mode.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the content server lists the clients that have already retrieved one part of the piece of content and addresses to a new client seeking to retrieve the piece of content the address of at least one other client from which it can retrieve at least one part of this content.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the content server determines the part or parts most often missing in the swarm, and wherein the content server addresses to a new client at least one of the parts identified as most often missing in order to ease its integration into the swarm.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, the piece of content being addressed by the content server in the form of parts identified with an associated item of information aiming to ease the exchange between clients in P2P mode.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4, the associated item of information including the hash.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein a module for monitoring the quality of service retrieves at least one quality of service parameter from the clients.

7. The method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the number of authorized client/server connections is a function of said at least one parameter.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, including the provision by the content server to a client of a program to be installed, especially in the form of a plug-in on the browser of this client, to be able to retrieve the piece of content in client/server mode with a P2P format and to receive the list of the clients of the content server.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the mode of broadcasting the piece of content in real time, client/server or P2P, is determined, as a function of predefined thresholds, particularly QoS and QoE, of the clients retrieving the piece of content.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the broadcasting of the piece of content is allowed, in P2P mode, via the browsers of the clients.

11. A computer program product, including a computer program stored on a medium or downloaded, arranged, onto the computer of a client, to:

install on the computer an application that makes it possible, from the browser of the client, upon connection to a content server arranged for implementing the method as defined in claim 1, to;

download the content from the server in client/server mode by parts compatible with its broadcast in P2P mode to other clients that have connected to the content server or, if the server does not offer this possibility,

download from the server a list of clients having parts of the piece of content so as to retrieve it in a P2P mode from other clients that have connected to the content server.