System and method for delivering high-performance online multimedia services

• US 6,370,571 B1
• Filed: 03/05/1997
• Issued: 04/09/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: At Home Bondholders Liquidating Trust (At Home Corporation)
• Original Assignee: At Home Corporation
• Inventors: Medin, Milo S. Jr.
• Primary Examiner(s): Harrell, Robert B.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Vaughn, Jr., William C.
• Application Number:
  US08/811,586
• Time in Patent Office: 1,861 Days
• Field of Search: 709/200, 709/203, 709/219, 709/218, 709/249, 709/251, 709/202, 709/210, 709/247, 709/216, 709/226, 709/21.3, 709/238, 709/277, 709/248, 345/333, 711/118, 711/117, 711/119, 711/122
• US Class Current: 709/218
• 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 12/1836 with heterogeneous network architecture
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1845 broadcast or multicast in a specific location, e.g. geocast protocols for adapting network applications to user terminal location H04L67/52; services specially adapted for wireless communication networks making use of the location of users or terminals H04W4/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1854 with non-centralised forwarding system, e.g. chaincast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1877 Measures taken prior to transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2801 Broadband local area networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2856 Access arrangements, e.g. Internet access asynchronous transfer mode networks H04L12/5601; broadband local area networks H04L12/2801; optical access or distribution networks H04Q11/0067; access to open networks H04L12/5691; digital subscriber line end-user equipment and bit-level processing of data on a PSTN-based network H04M11/00; home network gateways H04L12/2834; wireless access networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2861 Point-to-multipoint connection from the data network to the subscribers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/287 Remote access server, e.g. BRAS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2883 ATM DSLAM
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0807 using tickets, e.g. Kerberos cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication using tickets or tokens H04L9/3213
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/101 Access control lists [ACL]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/2885 Hierarchically arranged intermediate devices, e.g. for hierarchical caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2225 Local VOD servers
• 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

Abstract

Disclosed is a scalable, hierarchical, distributed network architecture and processes for the delivery of high-performance, end-to-end online multimedia services, including Internet services such as World Wide Web access. The network architecture connects a high-speed private backbone to multiple network access points of the Internet, to a network operation center, to a back office system, and to multiple regional servers in regional data centers. Each of the regional servers connects to several caching servers in modified head-ends, which in turn connect via fiber optics to many neighborhood nodes. Finally, each node connects via coaxial cable to multiple end-user systems. The processes include those for replicating and caching frequently-accessed content, and multicasting content customized per region or locality.

Claims

1. A system for delivery of high-performance online multimedia services comprising:

a high-speed backbone coupled to a plurality of network access points of a publicly accessible internetwork of networks for retrieving content;

a plurality of regional servers coupled to the high-speed backbone, each regional server for providing a second level of caching of the content for a region and for providing regionally-customized multicast content to a region;

a plurality of caching servers coupled to each of the regional servers, each caching server for providing a first level of caching of the content for a sub-region of the region served by the coupled regional server; and

a broadband distribution network coupling each of the caching servers to a plurality of end-user systems in the sub-region, for providing the cached content to the end-user systems responsive to requests from the end-user systems for content on the publicly accessible internetwork of networks, and for providing the regionally-customized multicast content to a group of the end-user systems in the sub-region.

2. The system of claim 1, where cached content is replicated from a first regional server to a second regional server.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a regional caching server coupled to a regional server for caching the content.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a central server distinct from the regional servers and coupled to the high-speed backbone via a router for coordinating management of the system.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a coupling from a remote local area network to the high-speed backbone which bypasses the publicly accessible internetwork of networks.

7. The system of claim 1, where the broadband distribution network comprises a hybrid fiber-coax (BFC) distribution system.

8. The system of claim 1, where the broadband distribution network comprises a xDSL distribution system.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a monitor device in communication with a central server distinct from the regional servers for monitoring an analog cable TV distribution system that also utilizes the HFC distribution system.

5. The system of claim 5, further comprising:

a network management system station in the central server for communicating with network management system agents in the regional servers.

10. A system for delivery of high-performance online multimedia services comprising:

a high-speed backbone coupled to a plurality of network access points of a publicly accessible internetwork of networks;

a plurality of regional servers coupled to the high-speed backbone via routers, where content is replicated amongst the regional servers;

a plurality of caching servers coupled to each of the regional servers, where recently-served content is stored by the caching server;

a plurality of end-user systems coupled to each of the caching servers, where regionally-customized content is multicast by one of the regional servers to a group of the end-user systems in its region; and

a central server coupled to the high-speed backbone, where a network management system station in the central server communicates with network management system agents in the regional servers.

11. A method for delivering high-performance online multimedia services, comprising the steps of:

providing a high-speed backbone coupled to a plurality of network access points of a publicly accessible internetwork of networks for retrieving content;

providing a plurality of regional servers coupled to the high-speed backbone, each regional server for providing a second level of caching of the content for a region and for providing regionally-customized multicast content to a region;

providing a plurality of caching servers coupled to each of the regional servers, each caching server for providing a first level of caching of the content for a sub-region of the region served by the coupled regional server; and

providing a broadband distribution network coupling each of the caching servers to a plurality of end-user systems in the sub-region, for providing the cached content to the end-user systems responsive to requests from the end-user systems for content on the publicly accessible internetwork of networks, and for providing the regionally-customized multicast content to a group of the end-user systems in the sub-region.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of providing a broadband distribution network comprises the step of:

providing a hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) distribution system.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising the step of:

monitoring an analog TV distribution system that also utilizes the HFC distribution system.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of providing a broadband distribution network comprises the step of:

providing a xDSL distribution system.

12. The method of clam 11, further comprising the step of:

replicating the cached content from a first regional server to a second regional server.

13. The method of clam 11, further comprising the step of:

coordinating the multicasting of the customized content with a central server.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the coordinating step comprises the step of:

communicating from the central server to network management system agents in the regional servers.