Method and system for managing high-bandwidth data sharing

• US 7,620,699 B1
• Filed: 07/26/2002
• Issued: 11/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PalTalk Holdings Incorporated (Paltalk, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: PalTalk Holdings Incorporated (Paltalk, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lattanzio, Mario, Scherer, Perry
• Primary Examiner(s): Vaughn, Jr.; William
• Assistant Examiner(s): BENGZON, GREG C
• Application Number:
  US10/205,817
• Time in Patent Office: 2,671 Days
• Field of Search: 709218-219, 709/201, 709/217, 709/203, 709/224, 709/238, 709/227, 709/228, 709/229, 709/245, 705/52, 705/1, 705/27, 700/83, 700/234, 725/91, 725/93, 715/522, 718/105
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1013 Network architectures, gateways, control or user entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

A server arrangement for facilitating the exchange of content between a plurality of user system associated with a common group is provided by employing a centralized server for directing publishing and extracting of content and a plurality of associated servers for facilitating the transmission of content between the user systems. A publisher is directed by the central server to a specific data server where content is to be provided. A consumer is directed by the central server to a specific data server from which content is to be extracted. The system is particularly adapt for facilitating the exchange of video data between members of a common group coupled to the Internet.

Claims

1. A method for providing high bandwidth data between one or more publishing systems and one or more consuming systems, comprising:

providing a presence server, wherein the presence server is coupled to a network;

providing a plurality of data servers;

receiving, with the presence server, a request to publish content from a publishing system;

selecting a data server from among the plurality of data servers to be a publishing target data server, wherein the data server is selected as being a least busy data server of the plurality of data servers;

determining, with the presence server, if the data server was provided as publishing target data server for a publishing system of the one or more publishing systems within a predetermined recent period and if the data server was not provided as a publishing target data server within the predetermined recent period, directing the publishing system to transmit content from the publishing system to the data server, and further wherein the content is received and stored by the data server;

receiving, with the presence server, a first one or more requests to receive or retrieve content transmitted from one or more consuming systems;

providing or transmitting information to each consuming system of the one or more consuming systems for enabling each consuming system of the one or more consuming systems to establish a direct connection via a computer network between data server and each consuming system of the one or more consuming systems;

providing or transmitting the content to each consuming system of the one or more consuming systems in response to the first one or more requests to receive or retrieve content received from each consuming system of the one or more consuming systems;

instructing the publishing system to stop transmitting the content to the data server when all of the one or more consuming systems stops viewing the content provided by or from the publishing system; and

instructing the publishing system to wait until a second one or more requests to receive or retrieve content is received.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising

storing a load indication for each data server of the plurality of data servers;

identifying the data server from the plurality of data servers having a lowest load indication.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the content is provided or transmitted to each consuming system of the one or more consuming systems in or via a PULL session.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

facilitating a conference which includes a plurality of user systems, wherein each user system is both a system which publishes content and a system which consumes content.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a system which publishes a first data content also consumes a second date content.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if updated content is available via the publishing system, establishing a new connection between the publishing system and the data server for transmitting the updated content from the publishing system to the data server.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if updated content is available via the publisher system, establishing a new connection between the publisher system and the data server for transmitting the updated content from the publisher system to the data server.

6. A method for operating a presence server associated with a plurality of data servers comprising:

receiving a request to publish content from a publisher system;

selecting a data server from the plurality of data servers, wherein the data server is selected as being a least busy data server of the plurality of data servers and the data server is determined to have not been provided as a publishing target data server within a predetermined recent period;

transmitting an identifier of the data server to the publisher system;

directing the publisher system to transmit the content from the publisher system to the data server, wherein the content is received and stored by the data server;

receiving one or more requests to retrieve or receive content from one or more consumer systems, wherein the one or more requests contains data for identifying the content;

transmitting an indication identifying the data server to the one or more consumer system for establishing a direct connection via a computer network between each consumer system of the one or more consumer systems and the data server; and

providing or transmitting the content to each consumer system of the one or more consumer systems;

instructing the publisher system to stop transmitting the content to the data server when all of the one or more consumer systems stops viewing the content provided by or from the publisher system; and

instructing the publisher system to wait until a next one or more requests to retrieve or receive content is received.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

adding data relating to the publisher system and the data server which received the content from the publisher system to a stored list indicating publisher systems and corresponding data server information.

8. A method for operating or providing a presence server to select a data server of a plurality of data servers available for receiving content from a publisher system and for providing the content to at least one consumer system of a plurality of consumer systems, wherein the at least one consumer system is directly connected to the data server via a computer network, the method comprising:

storing a list of the plurality of data servers available for receiving content from publisher system;

storing a corresponding use level indicator for each data server of the plurality of data servers in the list; and

in response to receiving a request from a publisher system for a data server to which to transmit content,

a) identifying a data server from the list having a lowest corresponding use level indication;

b) if the identified data server has not been provided as a target data server for a publisher request, for a data server to which to transmit content, within a predetermined preceding period, providing the publisher system with information identifying the data server as a target data server for the publisher system to provide or transmit content to and storing data associated with the data server to indicate that the data server has been provided as the target data server; and

c) if the data server has been provided as the target data server for a publisher request within a predetermined preceding period, identifying the data server having a next lowest corresponding use rate and proceeding to step (b);

providing the information to each consumer system of the plurality of consumer systems for enabling each consumer system of the plurality of consumer systems to establish a direct connection via a computer network between data server and each consumer system of the plurality of consumer systems

providing the content to each consumer system of the plurality of consumer systems requesting to receive the content in response to one or more requests to receive the content;

instructing the publisher system to stop providing the content to the data server when all of the plurality of consumer systems stop viewing the content provided by the publisher system; and

instructing the publisher system to wait until a next one or more requests to receive content is received.

9. A system for providing of video data content between a publisher system and at least one consumer system of a plurality of consumer systems, comprising:

a plurality of data servers coupled to a public network, wherein each data server of the plurality of data servers receives video data content from at least one publisher system and provides video data content to at least one consumer system, wherein the at least one consumer system is directly connected to a data server of the plurality of data servers via a computer network; and

a presence server coupled to the plurality of data servers and coupled to the public network, wherein the presence server receives information regarding at least one status indication from each data server of the plurality of data servers, wherein the presence server selects a data server from the plurality of data servers, wherein the data server is selected as being a least busy data server of the plurality of data servers and as having not been provided as a publishing target data server within a predetermined recent period, and further wherein the presence server provides a data server identifier which identifies a data server from the plurality of data servers, to a publisher system in response to receiving a publishing request from the publisher system, wherein the presence server directs the publishing system to publish the video data content to the data server identified by the presence server,

wherein the presence server receives one or more requests to receive or retrieve the video data content transmitted from one or more consumer systems, and further wherein the presence server provides or transmits information to each consumer system of the one or more consumer systems for enabling each consumer system of the one or more consumer systems to establish a direct connection via a computer network between the data server and each consumer system of the one or more consumer systems,

wherein the data server provides or transmits the video data content to each consumer system of the one or more consumer systems in response to the one or more requests to receive or retrieve the video data content, and

wherein the system instructs the publishing system to stop transmitting the video data content to the data server when all of the one or more consumer systems stop viewing the video data content provided by the publishing system, and wherein the system instructs the publishing system to wait until a second one or more requests to receive content is received.