METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRANSFERRING CONTENT AMONG LARGE CLUSTERS OF STORAGE DEVICES TO ACHIEVE A TARGET REPLICATION DISTRIBUTION

• US 20160142476A1
• Filed: 06/27/2013
• Published: 05/19/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Magnolia Licensing LLC (IP Edge LLC)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Inventors: IOANNIDIS, Efstratios, JIANG, Wenjie, MASSOULIE, Laurent, PICCONI, Fabio
• Granted Patent: US 9,942,311 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/61 for supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• 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

A content distribution network, including: a content server that stores a set of content items; a plurality of gateways for storing and serving content requests to a subset of the content items, the plurality of gateways being grouped into a plurality of classes of gateways; and a plurality of class trackers corresponding to the plurality of classes; wherein each class tracker manages a placement of content items and an assignment of content requests for its class of gateways; wherein the plurality of class trackers exchange congestion signals among themselves; wherein, for each content item, each class tracker determines a fraction of gateways in its class of gateways that store the content item and a rate of content requests that are forwarded to the content server or other class trackers, based on requests for the content item entering its class and the congestion signals received from other class trackers.

Claims

1. A content distribution network, comprising:

a content server that stores a set of content items;

a plurality of gateways for storing and serving content requests to a subset of the content items, the plurality of gateways being grouped into a plurality of classes of gateways; and

a plurality of class trackers corresponding to the plurality of classes of gateways;

wherein each class tracker manages a placement of content items and an assignment of content requests for its corresponding class of gateways;

wherein the plurality of class trackers exchange congestion signals among themselves;

wherein, for each content item, each class tracker determines a fraction of gateways in its corresponding class of gateways that store the content item and a rate of content requests that are forwarded to the content server or other class trackers, based on requests for the content item entering its class and the congestion signals received from other class trackers.

2. The content distribution network according to claim 1, wherein, for each content item, each class tracker, after determining the fraction of gateways in its corresponding class of gateways that store the content item, updates the contents in its corresponding class of gateways according to the determined fraction, so that content requests are served with high probability (w.h.p.) by its corresponding class of gateways.

3. The content distribution network according to claim 1, wherein each gateway comprises a plurality of storage slots for storing content items, wherein one of the plurality of storage slots is accessed by other gateways.

4. The content distribution network according to claim 1, wherein each class tracker tracks which gateways are in its class, which gateways are on or off, the content stored on each gateway, and which gateway is busy or idle.

5. The content distribution network according to claim 1, wherein the exchange of congestion signals is carried out periodically;

and, after each exchange, each class tracker updates, for each content item, the fraction of gateways in its corresponding class of gateways that store the content item and the rate of content requests that are forwarded to the content server or other class trackers.

6. The content distribution network according to claim 1, wherein, for each content item, each class tracker determines the fraction of gateways in its corresponding class of gateways that store the content item and the rate of content requests that are forwarded to the content server or other class trackers, is further based on minimizing cross-traffic costs associated with content requests that are forwarded to the content server or other class trackers.

7. A method of operating a content distribution network, the content distribution network comprising a content server that stores a set of content items, a plurality of gateways for storing and serving content requests to a subset of the content items, the plurality of gateways being grouped into a plurality of classes of gateways, and a plurality of class trackers corresponding to the plurality of classes of gateways, the method comprising:

managing, by each class tracker, a placement of content items and an assignment of content requests for its corresponding class of gateways;

exchanging congestion signals among the plurality of class trackers; and

for each content item, determining, by each class tracker, a fraction of gateways in its corresponding class of gateways that store the content item and a rate of content requests that are forwarded to the content server or other class trackers, based on requests for the content item entering its class and the congestion signals received from other class trackers.

8. The method according to claim 7, further comprising, for each content item, each class tracker, after determining the fraction of gateways in its corresponding class of gateways that store the content item, updating the contents in its corresponding class of gateways according to the determined fraction, so that content requests are served with high probability (w.h.p.) by its corresponding class of gateways.

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein each gateway comprises a plurality of storage slots for storing content items, wherein one of the plurality of storage slots is accessed by other gateways.

10. The method according to claim 7, wherein each class tracker tracks which gateways are in its class, which gateways are on or off, the content stored on each gateway, and which gateway is busy or idle.

11. The method according to claim 7, further comprising:

carrying out the exchange of congestion signals periodically; and

after each exchange, for each content item, updating, by each class tracker, the fraction of gateways in its corresponding class of gateways that store the content item and the rate of content requests that are forwarded to the content server or other class trackers.

12. The method according to claim 7, wherein, for each content item, the determining by each class tracker the fraction of gateways in its corresponding class of gateways that store the content item and the rate of content requests that are forwarded to the content server or other class trackers, is further based on minimizing cross-traffic costs associated with content requests that are forwarded to the content server or other class trackers.