System and method for distributed content transformation

• US 8,145,793 B1
• Filed: 11/01/2004
• Issued: 03/27/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/04/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Belanger, David Gerald, Bellovin, Steven Michael, Fernandez, Maria F., Hall, Robert J., Kalmanek, Jr., Charles Robert, McKenna, Kathleen, Srivastava, Divesh
• Primary Examiner(s): Pwu, Jeffrey
• Assistant Examiner(s): Taha, Shaq
• Application Number:
  US10/978,549
• Time in Patent Office: 2,703 Days
• Field of Search: 709/246
• US Class Current: 709/246
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

A distributed transformation network provides delivery of content from a content publisher to a content recipient. Content from the content publisher is received at an entry node of the distributed transformation network and transmitted to a transformation node in the distributed transformation network. The content is transformed according to publisher, recipient or network administrator specifications and transmitting to delivery nodes which deliver the transformed content to the content recipient. The published content may be in an XML-based format and transformed into an XML-related format or any other structured language format as desired in the provided specification.

Claims

1. A method of delivering content from a content publisher to a content recipient via a distributed transformation network, the method comprising:

receiving the content from the content publisher at an entry node of the distributed transformation network, wherein the content is in an XML based format;

transforming, in the distributed transformation network, the content into transformed content according to a specification that is determined by the content publisher and a network administrator, the specification based on at least one of;

a best-effort basis for delivery of the content and a guaranteed basis for delivery of the content; and

transmitting the transformed content to the content recipient, wherein the transforming leaves the content in the same format but adds data to the content.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising, after receiving the content at the entry node:

transmitting the content to a transformation node in the distributed transformation network, wherein the transformation node transforms the content; and

transmitting the transformed content to a delivery node which delivers the transformed content to the content recipient.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the provided specification is at least partly written in an XML transformation language.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the specification is further based on at least one of:

on-demand transformation and transformation as content is received.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformed content is rendered in an XML-based format.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformed content is rendered in an XML-based format which conforms to the XML-based format of the content.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformed content is rendered in a format that conforms to an XML-related format.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the XML-related format is one of WML, NetML, ebXML.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformed content is rendered in a format that conforms to at least one of one of an HTML-related format, an arbitrary format, ASCII and other structured-language format.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising, before receiving the XML-based content at the entry node:

receiving non-XML-based content at a non-XML-based entry node; and

transforming the non-XML-based content into XML-based content for transmission to the at least one entry node.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing security and digital rights management to nodes within the distributed transformation network.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the specifications relate to security parameters.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the security parameters are one of authorization of a person and authorization for a recipient computing device.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the specifications relate to at least one of the following recipient device capabilities:

screen size, input capabilities, bandwidth limitations, memory and/or processing capability, software capabilities, operating system capabilities and software versions.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the specification relates to the physical capabilities of a recipient computing device.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the specification relates to logical software capabilities of a recipient computing device.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

monitoring nodes within the distributed transformation network to provide performance and management information.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

optimizing performance of the distributed transformation network according to the performance and management information received from the monitoring step.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the performance and management information includes at least one of:

audit information, performance feedback, abnormal behavior detection, alerting, monitoring enabled services to recipients and billing.

20. A distributed transformation network for delivering content from a content publisher to a content recipient, the distributed transformation network comprising:

at least one entry node in the distributed transformation network that receives the content from the content publisher, wherein the content is in an XML based format;

at least one transformation node that receives the content from the at least one entry node, and transforms the content into transformed content according to a specification that is determined by the content publisher and a network administrator, the specification based on at least one of;

a best-effort basis for delivery of the content and a guaranteed basis for delivery of the content, wherein the transforming leaves the content in the same format but adds data to the content;

at least one administrative node that communicates the specification for content transformation from an entity to the at least one transformation node; and

at least one delivery node that delivers the transformed content to the content recipient.

21. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein the entity is one of a content recipient, content publisher, a network administrator and any combination of the same.

22. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, further comprising at least one non-XML-based entry node that receives non-XML-based content and that transforms the non-XML-based content into XML-based content and transmits the transformed XML-based content to the at least one entry node.

23. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein at least one of an entry node, transformation node, and delivery node incorporate security and digital rights management of content.

24. The distributed transformation network of claim 23, wherein the security and digital rights management of content is the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).

25. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein the transformation of the content is specified by at least one of the following transformation languages:

XSLT, XQuery and XPath.

26. The distributed transformation network of claim 23, further comprising a requirements notification node that provides input to nodes within the distributed transformation network to manage the transformation and delivery of the content.

27. The distributed transformation network of claim 26, wherein the input to nodes within the distributed transformation network relates to at least one of screen size, input capabilities, bandwidth limitations, memory and/or processing capability, software capabilities, operating system capabilities, software versions and security issues related to a recipient computing device.

28. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein the content is further transformed based on one of the following criteria:

on-demand, at a specified time, a soon as possible, and based on whether new published content is received.

29. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein the transformed content is one of WML, NetML and ebXML.

30. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein the transformed content is in one of an HTML-based format, arbitrary binary format, ASCII and other structured language format.

31. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein the distributed transformation network is a virtual private network.

32. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein the transformation of the content is based on the physical capabilities of a computing device associated with the recipient.

33. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein the transformed content is delivered to a recipient in one of the HTTP protocol and the WAP protocol.

34. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein recipients and/or publishers have radio frequency identification technology associated with their respective computing devices.

35. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, wherein the content publishers publish content comprising radio frequency identification data, wherein the transformation nodes transform the content with radio frequency identification data according to the provided specifications.

36. The distributed transformation network of claim 35, wherein the provided specifications include specifications related to at least one recipient class.

37. The distributed transformation network of claim 35, further comprising:

a radio frequency identification encoding node that encodes the radio frequency identification into XML-based data for transmission to the at least one entry node.

38. The distributed transformation network of claim 24, wherein SAML events are monitored in real-time.

39. The distributed transformation network of claim 38, wherein the SAML relate to one of detection of:

fraudulent user activity, credit-card fraud, unauthorized resource use and off-line auditing of expense reports.

40. The distributed transformation network of claim 20, further comprising:

at least one monitoring node that provides performance and management information to an entity.

41. The distributed transformation network of claim 40, wherein the performance and management information includes at least one of:

audit information, performance feedback, abnormal behavior detection, alerting, monitoring enabled services to recipients and billing.

42. The distributed transformation network of claim 40, wherein the at least one monitoring node enables publishers and/or recipients to direct how content is routed between network nodes and how parts of transformation are allocated among network nodes.

43. The distributed transformation network of claim 42, wherein the network nodes comprise at least one of entry nodes, transformation nodes, delivery nodes and administrative nodes.

44. The distributed transformation network of claim 42, further comprising:

at least one optimizer node that receives data from the at least one monitor node and provides information to at least one administrative node for improving performance of the distributed transformation network.

45. A method of delivering content from a content publisher to a content recipient via a distributed transformation network, the method comprising:

receiving the content associated with a movable object, the content including at least radio frequency identification data, wherein the content is in an XML based format;

encoding the radio frequency identification data into an XML-based data for transmission to at least one entry node of the distributed transformation network;

transmitting the encoded XML-based content to a transformation node in the distributed transformation network;

transforming the transmitted content according to a specification determined by a combination of the content publisher and a network administrator, the specification based on at least one of;

a best-effort basis for delivery of the content and a guaranteed basis for delivery of the content, wherein the transforming leaves the content in the same format but adds data to the content; and

transmitting the transformed content to delivery nodes which deliver the transformed content to the content recipient.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein the content including radio frequency identification data is derived from a person.

47. The method of claim 45, wherein the moveable object is a product for sale.