IMAGE FEEDING SERVER NETWORK

• US 20160021041A1
• Filed: 07/15/2014
• Published: 01/21/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zebrafish Labs, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Zebrafish Labs, Inc.
• Inventors: Zacharias, Christopher, Larkin, Jeremy, Birdsong, David
• Granted Patent: US 9,894,023 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/10 Multimedia information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/101 based on network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1023 based on a hash applied to IP addresses or costs
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements

Abstract

Technology is disclosed for feeding source images from image stores of client systems into an image processing system using image feeding servers (“the technology”). The technology includes multiple image feeding servers that can feed a source image to the image processing system, using which the image processing system can generate processed images to be served to end users. The image feeding servers can be installed at various locations, e.g., geographically spread, and more proximate to where the source images are stored. An image feeding server obtains the source image from the image store in original size, downsizes the source image, and transmits the downsized source image to the image processing system. The technology selects an image feeding server based on a score of the image feeding server. The score can be determined as a function of one or more image feeding server parameters, e.g., latency, workload, or computing resource.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

transmitting, by an image processing system, a request for response to a plurality of servers, the request for performing a task on a source image stored at an image store of a client system to generate a first image, the first image served as a processed image to a user device accessing content associated with the client system, the content including the processed image;

receiving, by the image processing system and from at least a subset of the servers, a response from each server of the subset of the servers, the response including a corresponding score indicative of a match of the corresponding server to perform the task on the source image;

sending, by the image processing system, a message to a first server of the subset of the servers to perform the task, the first server having a first score that exceeds a predefined threshold or is highest among the scores; and

receiving, at the image processing system, the first image from the first server, the first image generated by the first server by performing the task on the source image.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the message to perform the task includes:

sending a first message to obtain the source image from the image store at the first server in an original size of the source image, the original size being a file size of the source image, and

sending a second message to the first server to downsize the source image to the first image having a first size, the first size being a file size of the first image, the first size being smaller than the original size.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein downsizing the source image to generate the first image includes decreasing a resolution of the source image.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the score of each of the servers is determined as a function of latency between the corresponding server and the image store.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the score of each of the servers is determined as a function of a load of the corresponding server.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the load of the corresponding server is determined as a function of a number of tasks being performed by the corresponding server and a size of the source image on which the corresponding task is being performed by the corresponding server.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first server has a first latency with the image store and a second latency with the image processing system, the first latency being lower than the second latency.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the image processing system has a first latency with the first server and a second latency with the image store, the first latency being lower than the second latency.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first server is geographically more proximate to the image store than the image processing system is to the image store.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the first image is of a target size and the source image is of an original size, the target size being a file size of the first image, the original size being a file size of the source image, the target size being smaller than the original size.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the request for response includes the target size.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

processing, by the image processing system, the first image to generate a plurality of images based on a set of image processing instructions, the plurality of images being part of the content associated with the client system, the plurality of images associated with a corresponding image processing instruction of the set, the plurality of images including the processed image.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

serving, by the image processing system, the processed image to the user device accessing the content.

14. The method claim 12, wherein the first image of the target size is an image of a lowest size of the source image using which the plurality of images is generated.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving, at the image processing system and from the client system, a second request for a second image, the second request originating from the user device accessing content associated with the client system;

processing, by the image processing system, the first image to generate the second image based on a set of image processing instructions associated with the second image; and

presenting the second image to the user device to be displayed with the content.

16. A method comprising:

receiving, at a first server of a plurality of servers and from an image processing system, a request to send a downsized image of a source image stored at an image store of a client system to the image processing system;

determining, by the first server, a score of the first server, the score indicative of a match of the first server to service the request;

sending, by the first server, the score to the image processing system;

receiving, at the first server and based on the score, a confirmation for servicing the request;

obtaining, by the first server and in response to receiving the confirmation, the source image from the image store in an original size of the source image stored at the image store, the original size being a file size of the source image;

processing, by the first server, the source image to generate the downsized image, the downsized image being of a first size, the first size being a file size of the first image, the first size being smaller than the original size; and

transmitting the downsized image to the image processing system.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein determining the score includes determining the score as a function of (a) a latency between the first server and the image store and (b) a load of the first server.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein determining the score includes determining the score as a function of computing resource required to service the request.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the first server obtains the source image from the image store over a first communication link and transmits the downsized image over a second communication link.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the first communication link has a first latency and the second communication link has a second latency, the first latency being lesser than the second latency.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein the first server includes a list of image stores, and wherein the first server determines a latency between the first server and each image store of the list to generate a set of latencies for the first server.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the first server determines a set of scores based on the set of latencies, and wherein the first server transmits the set of scores to the image processing system.

23. The method of claim 16, wherein each of a subset of the servers advertises their corresponding score to the image processing system based on a trigger.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the score of the first server is highest among scores of the subset of the servers.

25. An apparatus comprising:

a processor;

a request dispatch module that works in cooperation with the processor to send a plurality of job requests for performing a job on a source image stored at an image store of a client system to a plurality of servers;

a server determination module that works in cooperation with the processor to determine a first server of the servers for performing the job on the source image based on a plurality of responses received from the servers for the job requests, the first server determined based on a first score of the first server, the first score satisfying a criterion for performing the job,

wherein the request dispatch module is configured to send a message to the first server to perform the job; and

an image receiving module that works in cooperation with the processor to receive a first image from the first server, where in the first image is a downsized version of the source image.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the server determination module is configured to:

retrieve a plurality of scores of the servers from the responses, the scores indicative of a match of the servers to perform the job advertised, each of the scores determined by the corresponding server based on a latency of the corresponding server with the image store, and

identify a specified score of the scores that exceeds a predefined threshold as the first score.

27. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the server determination module is configured to:

retrieve a latency of each of the servers with the image store from the responses,

determine a score of each of the servers as a function of the latency of the corresponding server to generate a plurality of scores, the scores indicative of a match of the servers to perform the job advertised, and

identify a specified score of the scores that exceeds a predefined threshold as the first score.

28. The apparatus of claim 25 further comprising:

an image processing module to generate a plurality of processed images to serve one or more of the processed images to an end user accessing content associated with the client system, the generating including processing the first image based on an a set of image processing instructions associated with the first image.

29. The apparatus of claim 25 further comprising:

a score determination module to send a first message to each of the servers for determining a score of the corresponding server based on (a) a latency between the corresponding server and the image store, (b) a load of the corresponding server, and (c) computing resources of the corresponding server.

30. The apparatus of claim 25 further comprising:

a score determination module to send a first message to each of the servers for determining a score of the corresponding server based on a number of downsizing jobs being performed by the corresponding server and a size of a specified source image which is being downsized in each of the downsizing jobs.