System and method for storing streaming media file

• US 8,880,650 B2
• Filed: 10/20/2008
• Issued: 11/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xunlei Networking Technologies, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Xunlei Networking Technologies, Ltd.
• Inventors: Hu, Maowei, Luo, Haijiang, Yang, Xianfeng
• Primary Examiner(s): RECEK, JASON D
• Application Number:
  US12/680,863
• Publication Number:
  US 20100241757A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,206 Days
• Field of Search: 709/219, 709/231
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2181 comprising remotely distributed storage units, e.g. when movies are replicated over a plurality of video servers distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/222 Secondary servers, e.g. proxy server, cable television Head-end provisioning of proxy services in data packet switching networks H04L67/56
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23109 by placing content in organized collections, e.g. EPG data repository details of retrieval of video data and associated meta data in video databases G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

A system and method for storing a streaming media file for improving the performance of a streaming media server and fully utilizing the space of a storage are provided. The system includes: a segmenting and distributing server, adapted to segment the streaming media file into at least two segment files, determine a number of the streaming media servers for storing each segment file, distribute each of the at least two segment files to corresponding streaming media servers according to the determined number of the streaming media servers, and transmit the related information of each of the at least two segment files to a resource index server; at least two streaming media servers, adapted to receive and store the segment file; and the resource index server, adapted to receive the related information and establish an index in respect of each segment file and its related information.

Claims

1. A system for storing a streaming media file, comprising:

a segmenting and distributing server;

a resource index server, wherein the resource index is implemented on a single computer; and

at least two streaming media servers;

wherein the segmenting and distributing server is adapted to;

segment the streaming media file into at least two segment files;

determine for each segment file a number of the streaming media servers for storing the segment file based on a temporal position of the segment file within the streaming media file, wherein the segmenting and distributing server is adapted to determine that the number of streaming media servers for storing a segment file at a beginning or ending temporal position is larger that the number of streaming media servers for storing a segment file at a middle temporal position;

distribute each of the at least two segment files to corresponding streaming media servers according to the determined number of the streaming media servers; and

transmit the related information of each of the at least two segment files to the resource index server;

wherein each of the streaming media server is adapted to receive and store one or more segment files distributed by the segmenting and distributing server; and

wherein the resource index server is adapted to receive the related information transmitted by the segmenting and distributing server for each of the at least two segment files and establish an index in respect of each segment file and its related information.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein, the related information for each segment file of the at least two segments files comprises:

an identification of the segment file, an identification of the streaming media file corresponding to the segment file, an offset address of the segment file within the corresponding streaming media file, the length of the segment file and the addresses of all the streaming media servers storing the segment file.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the identification of the segment file is obtained by calculating the data of the segment file using a preset algorithm.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the identification of the streaming media file is obtained by calculating data of the streaming media file using a preset algorithm.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the segmenting and distributing server is adapted to distribute a beginning segment file of the streaming media file to all the streaming media servers and distribute one or more other segment files of the streaming media file to fewer than all of the streaming media servers.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the segmenting and distributing server is adapted to distribute each of the at least two segment files to at least two streaming media servers.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a streaming media client, adapted to determine the streaming media servers storing a target segment file by querying the resource index server, download the target segment file simultaneously from the determined streaming media servers, and play the downloaded target segment file.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the segmenting and distributing server is adapted to segments the streaming media file into at least two segment files according to size of the streaming media file or a boundary of frames of the streaming media file.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the resource index server is further adapted to:

receive from a client a query of the index of a segment file, wherein the segment file is stored on two or more streaming media servers; and

return to the client information indicating each of the two or more streaming media servers on which the segment file is stored, wherein the information enables the client to download the segment file from each of the two or more streaming media servers.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the segmenting and distributing server is adapted to:

determine an accumulated number of segment files to be distributed by accumulating the number of the streaming media servers for storing each segment file; and

distribute the accumulated number of segment files to the streaming media servers such that a total number of segment files distributed to each streaming media server is substantially the same.

11. A method for storing a streaming media file, comprising:

segmenting the streaming media file into at least two segment files;

determining for each segment file a number of streaming media servers for storing each segment file based on a temporal position of the segment file within the streaming media file, wherein said determining includes determining that the number of streaming media servers for storing a segment file at a beginning or ending temporal position is larger that the number of streaming media servers for storing a segment file at a middle temporal position;

distributing and storing each of the at least two segment files to corresponding streaming media servers according to the determined number of the streaming media servers; and

transmitting related information for each of the at least two segment files to a resource index server, wherein the resource index server is implemented on a single computer; and

establishing on the resource index server an index in respect of each segment file and its related information.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the related information of each segment file comprises:

an identification of the segment file, an identification of the streaming media file corresponding to the segment file, an offset address of the segment file within the corresponding streaming media file, the length of the segment file, and the addresses of all the streaming media servers storing the segment file.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the identification of the segment file is obtained by calculating the data of the segment file using a preset algorithm.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the identification of the streaming media file is obtained by calculating data of the streaming media file using a preset algorithm.

15. The method of claim 11, comprising distributing a beginning segment file of the streaming media file to all the streaming media servers and distributing one or more other segment files of the streaming media file to fewer that all of the streaming media servers.

16. The method of claim 11, comprising distributing each of the at least two segment files to at least two streaming media servers.

17. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

determining the streaming media servers storing a target segment file by querying the resource index server, downloading the target segment file simultaneously from each of the determined streaming media servers and playing the target segment file.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein segmenting the streaming media file into at least two segment files comprises:

segmenting the streaming media file into at least two segment files according to size of the streaming media file or a boundary of frames of the streaming media file.