System and method for providing content-oriented services to content providers and content consumers

• US 20040003032A1
• Filed: 06/28/2002
• Published: 01/01/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rovi Technologies Corporation (Adeia Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ma, Wei-Ying, Sun, Liang, Xie, Xing, Chen, Yu, Yuan, Chun, Zhang, Hongjiang
• Granted Patent: US 7,809,813 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/564 Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

A content service network for providing content-oriented services over the Internet or similar networks comprises a service delivery overlay having a plurality of application servers and a content delivery network overlay having a plurality of service-enabled proxies in content delivery paths between content providers and content consumers. The service delivery overlay and the content delivery network collaborate to provide content-oriented processing, such as adaptive video delivery, content personalization, language translation, etc. The content service network accepts subscriptions from content providers and content consumer. For each subscription, service instructions including service binding data for binding the subscribed services with the subscriber'"'"'s identity are generated and distributed to the service-enabled proxies. When a service-enabled proxy detects that a message passing therethrough requires a subscribed service, it retrieves service instructions for the service and renders the service either by making a remote call to an application service or by invoking a local execution module.

Claims

1. A content service network for providing content-oriented services on contents delivered over a wide-area network, comprising:

a content delivery network having a plurality of service-enabled proxies disposed in content delivery paths between content providers and content consumers on the wide-area network; and

a service delivery overlay having a plurality of application servers for performing content processing for rendering content-oriented services and at least service management server for managing service subscription, the service management server having a service subscription component for receiving service subscriptions for content-oriented services from subscribers, creating for each subscribed service a service instruction including service binding data identifying a subscriber for said each subscribed service and identifying said each subscribed service, and distributing the service instructions to the service-enabled proxies,

each of the service-enabled proxies having an instruction cache for storing service instructions received from the service management server and being programmed to matching a message passing therethrough against service binding data of the service instructions in the instruction cache to identify a service to be rendered on the message, retrieving a service instruction associated with the identified service, and executing the associated service instruction to render the identified service to the message, including calling an application server in the service delivery overlay to perform content processing required for the identified service on said message.

2. A content service network as in claim 1, wherein the wide-area network is the Internet.

3. A content service network as in claim 1, wherein the service management server further includes a service registration component for receiving service registrations from providers of content-oriented services to be deployed in the content service network.

4. A content service network as in claim 3, wherein the service registration component is programmed to send information on registered services to a network registry for public discovery.

5. A content service network as in claim 1, wherein the service delivery overlay further includes a plurality of redirection servers for directing calls for content processing from the service-enabled proxies to the application servers.

6. A content service network as in claim 1, wherein the service subscription component is programmed to create for an end user as a service subscriber a service instruction having service binding data containing an identification of the user.

7. A content service network as in claim 6, wherein the service subscription component is programmed to create for a content provider as a service subscriber a service instruction having service binding data identifying a domain name of the content provider.

8. A content service network as in claim 1, wherein each service-enabled proxy includes an instruction cache for storing service instructions.

9. A content service network as in claim 8, wherein each of the service instructions includes conditions for rendering a service associated with said each service instruction.

10. A content service network as in claim 1, wherein each service-enabled proxy includes a content cache for caching contents delivered therethrough to content consumers on the wide-area network.

11. A service-enabled proxy disposed in content delivery paths between content providers and content consumers on a wide-area network for providing content-oriented services, comprising:

a service instruction cache for storing service instructions, each service instruction having service binding data identifying a service subscriber and specifying a subscribed content-oriented service;

a message parser for parsing a message passing through the service-enabled proxy for extracting information for identifying, based on the service binding data of the service instructions, a content-oriented service to be rendered on the message;

an instruction processor for loading a service instruction associated with the identified content-oriented service from the service instruction cache; and

a service execution module for executing the loaded service instruction to cause rendering of the identified content-oriented service on the message, the service execution module being programmed to make a remote call to a remote application server for performing content processing on the message to render the identified content-oriented service if the loaded service instruction calls for remote processing.

12. A service-enabled proxy as in claim 11, further including an instruction parser for parsing services instructions received from a service management server.

13. A service-enabled proxy as in claim 11, further including a result cache for caching results of content processing on the message performed for rendering the identified content-oriented service.

14. A service-enabled proxy as in claim 11, wherein the service execution module is further programmed to invoke a local execution module for the identified content-oriented service if the loaded service instruction calls for local processing.

15. A service-enabled proxy as in claim 11, wherein each of the service instructions includes data representing conditions for the service-enabled proxy to determine whether to render the content-oriented service identified in said each service instruction.

16. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for a service-enabled proxy disposed in content-delivery paths between content providers and content consumers on a wide-area network to performs steps for providing content-oriented services, the steps comprising:

receiving a message routed along a content delivery path;

determining whether the message requires an associated content-oriented service based on service binding data for service instructions stored in an instruction cache, each service instruction being constructed for a corresponding subscribed content-oriented service and including service binding data identifying a subscriber of said corresponding subscribed content-oriented service and specifying said corresponding subscribed content-oriented service;

loading a service instruction for the associated content-oriented service for the message from the instruction cache; and

executing the loaded service instruction to render the associated content-oriented service for the message, including making a remote call to an application server to perform content processing on the message to render the associated content-oriented for the message if the loaded service instruction calls for remote processing.

17. A computer-readable medium as in claim 16, wherein the step of determining includes parsing the message to retrieve relevant information.

18. A computer-readable medium as in claim 16, having further computer-executable instructions for performing the step of storing results of content processing of the message in a result queue.

19. A computer-readable medium as in claim 16, having further computer-executable instructions for performing the steps of parsing service instructions received from a service management server and storing the parsed service instructions in the service instruction cache.

20. A computer-readable medium as in claim 16, wherein the step of executing includes invoking a local execution module for the associated content-oriented service for the message if the loaded service instruction calls for local processing.

21. A computer-readable medium as in claim 16, having further computer-executable instructions for performing the step of determining whether services conditions of the loaded service instruction are met before executing said loaded service instruction to render the associated content-oriented service on the message.