Integrated adaptive anycast for content distribution

• US 9,667,516 B2
• Filed: 10/02/2015
• Issued: 05/30/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Brotman, Herani, Miros, James, Van der Merwe, Jacobus E., Santoro, Mario A., Spatscheck, Oliver, Glasser, Alan L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Thieu, Benjamin M
• Application Number:
  US14/873,618
• Publication Number:
  US 20160028600A1
• Time in Patent Office: 606 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/126 minimising geographical or physical path length
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• 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 67/1021 based on client or server locations

Abstract

A system including first and second servers, a domain server, and a route controller is disclosed. The first and second servers are configured to respond to an anycast address and to first and second unicast addresses respectively. The route controller is configured to determine whether the first cache server is non-overloaded, overloaded, or offline, and may instruct the domain name server to provide to provide the second unicast address when the status is overloaded or offline. Routing of the anycast address may be modified so as to direct a content request sent to the anycast address to the second cache server when the status is offline. The domain name server may receive a request for a cache server address and provide the anycast address to the requestor when the status is non-overloaded, and provide the second unicast address when the status is offline or overloaded.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a memory that stores instructions;

a processor that executes the instructions to perform operations, the operations comprising;

identifying a serving region for a requestor associated with a content request based on determining that the requestor is connecting through a same ingress point of a content delivery network as other requestors belonging to the serving region;

instructing, when a status of a first cache server of the serving region is determined to be an offline status, a domain name server to provide a unicast address for a second cache server; and

modifying, when the status of the first cache server is determined to be the offline status, routing of an anycast address to direct the content request that is sent to the anycast address to the unicast address of the second cache server.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise determining the status of the first cache server.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise identifying the second cache server.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise determining that the first cache server has the offline status when a notification is not received from the first cache server.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise determining that the first cache server has the offline status based on detection of a failure associated with the first cache server.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise determining that the first cache server has the offline status based on detection of a scheduled maintenance associated with the first cache server.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise receiving a request for an address of the first cache server.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise determining that the status of the first cache server has an overloaded status when a load of the first cache server exceeds a threshold.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise determining that the status of the first cache server has a non-overloaded status when a load of the first cache server does not exceed a threshold.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise determining if the status of the first cache server has a pre-overloaded status, wherein the first cache server has the pre-overloaded status if the first cache server has a load that exceeds a pre-overload threshold, but does not exceed an overload threshold.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise determining a different serving region for a different requestor associated with a different the content request.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the operations further comprise determining if a third cache server belongs to the different serving region.

13. A method, comprising:

identifying a serving region for a requestor associated with a content request based on determining that the requestor is connecting through a same ingress point of a content delivery network as other requestors belonging to the serving region;

instructing, when a status of a first cache server of the serving region is determined to be an offline status and by utilizing instructions from a memory that are executed by a processor, a domain name server to provide a unicast address for a second cache server; and

causing, when the status of the first cache server is determined to be the offline status, the content request that is sent to the anycast address to be directed to the unicast address of the second cache server.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining the status of the first cache server.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining that the first cache server has the offline status based on detection of a failure associated with the first cache server.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining that the first cache server has the offline status based on detection of a scheduled maintenance associated with the first cache server.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining that the first cache server has the offline status when a notification is not received from the first cache server.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining if the serving region of the requestor associated with the content request includes an unstable network.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising providing the unicast address for the second cache server when the serving region includes the unstable network.

20. A method, comprising:

identifying a serving region for a requestor associated with a content request based on determining that the requestor is connecting through a same ingress point of a content delivery network as other requestors belonging to the serving region;

receiving an instruction to provide a unicast address of an alternate cache server to the requestor when a status of a first cache server of the serving region is determined to be an offline status, wherein the first cache server serves content requests sent to an anycast address from the serving region of the requestor; and

transmitting, based on the instruction, the unicast address of the alternate cache server to the requestor in response to an address request when the status of the first cache server is the offline status.