CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK STREAM SERVER VIGNETTE DISTRIBUTION

• US 20100077056A1
• Filed: 09/21/2009
• Published: 03/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Limelight Networks, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Limelight Networks, Inc.
• Inventors: Cadwell, Eric, Monson, Tamara, Corley, Jon B., Kokal, Mohan I.
• Granted Patent: US 8,966,003 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23106 involving caching operations prefetching while addressing of a memory level in which the access to the desired data or data block requires associative addressing means within memory systems or architectures G06F12/0862; caching at an intermediate stage in a data network H04L67/568
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6175 involving transmission via Internet broadcast-related systems characterised by the transmission system being the Internet H04H60/82
• 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 delivering content objects over the Internet to an end user system with a content delivery network (CDN) is disclosed. The system and method allow for dynamically storing and distributing a portion of content streams. When a content object is requested by an end user media player, the request is assigned to an edge server within the CDN. Characteristics of the content object are used to determine the portion of the content object where the portion is less than all of the requested content. The portion of content object is then retrieved from the content and is stored within the CDN. The portion of requested content is streamed to the end user media player. Ultimately, the whole content is streamed to the end user media player if the remainder of content is requested by the end user media player.

Claims

1. A method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a content delivery network (CDN), which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system, the method comprising:

receiving a request to stream a content object to the end user system;

assigning the request to an edge server within the CDN;

determining a portion of the content object based, at least in part, on the characteristics of the content object, wherein;

the portion is less than all of content object, and

the content object comprises a portion and a remainder;

retrieving the portion of the content object from a remote location;

storing the portion of the content object such that the portion is accessible to the edge server without storing the remainder unless subsequently requested; and

streaming the portion of the content object to the end user system.

2. The method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system as recited in claim 1, wherein the characteristics of content object comprises at least one of storage space available, size of the content object or encoding format of the content object.

3. The method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system as recited in claim 1, wherein the determining comprises:

retrieving content object characteristics;

determining storage space per time segment based, at least in part, on the content object characteristics;

identifying start of the portion in the content object;

identifying end of the portion in the content object.

4. The method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system as recited in claim 1, wherein the vignette comprises an audio or video clip.

5. The method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system as recited in claim 1, wherein the assigning is performed through a domain name system (DNS) resolution.

6. The method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system as recited in claim 1, wherein the assigning is performed through an HTTP Redirect function.

7. The method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system as recited in claim 1, wherein the content object comprises an on-demand stream.

8. The method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system as recited in claim 1, wherein the portion of the content object comprises a predetermined period of the on-demand stream.

9. The method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system as recited in claim 8, wherein the predetermined period starts at the beginning of the on-demand stream.

10. The method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system as recited in claim 1, wherein the remote location comprises an origin server.

11. The method for streaming content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes a vignette of the content object to the end user system as recited in claim 1, wherein the remote location comprises another server within the CDN.

12. A CDN for streaming content over the Internet to an end user system, the CDN comprising:

a content object request function that receives a request for streaming content object to the end user system;

an edge server selection function that assigns the request to an edge server for streaming content to the end user system;

a stream-request function, wherein the stream-request function;

determines the portion of the content object based, at least in part, on the characteristics of the content object, wherein;

the portion is less than all of content object, and

the content object comprises a portion and a remainder;

retrieves the portion of the content object from a remote location; and

stores the portion of the content object such that the portion is accessible to the edge server without storing the remainder unless requested; and

a streaming function that streams the portion of the content object to the end user system.

13. The CDN for streaming content over the Internet to the end user system as recited in claim 12, wherein the portion is the first byte of the content object.

14. The CDN for streaming content over the Internet to the end user system as recited in claim 12, wherein the portion is made sticky in a cache of the edge server to avoid automatic purging form the cache.

15. The CDN for streaming content over the Internet to the end user system as recited in claim 12, wherein the remote location is an origin server for the content.

16. A method for delivering at least a portion of a content object over the Internet to an end user system with a CDN, which distributes the portion of the content object to the end user system, the method comprising:

receiving a request to deliver a content object to the end user system;

assigning the request to an edge server within the CDN;

determining a portion of the content object based, at least in part, on the characteristics of the content object, wherein;

the portion is less than all of content object, and

the content object comprises a portion and a remainder;

retrieving the portion of the content object from a remote location;

storing the portion of the content object such that the portion is accessible to the edge server without storing the remainder unless subsequently requested; and

delivering the portion of the content object to the end user system.

17. The method for delivering at least the portion of the content object over the Internet to the end user system with the CDN as recited in claim 16, wherein the delivery of the portion is streaming delivery.

18. The method for delivering at least the portion of the content object over the Internet to the end user system with the CDN as recited in claim 16, further comprising:

determining that the end user system is no longer receiving the delivery of the portion, and

halting retrieval of whatever is still missing from the portion when the end user is no longer receiving delivery.

19. The method for delivering at least the portion of the content object over the Internet to the end user system with the CDN as recited in claim 16, further comprising:

determining that the end user system is no longer receiving the delivery of the portion,

determining if the portion is likely to be requested by others within a time frame, and

halting retrieval of whatever is still missing from the portion when the end user is no longer receiving delivery if the portion is unlikely to be requested again.

20. The method for delivering at least the portion of the content object over the Internet to the end user system with the CDN as recited in claim 16, further comprising determining if a size of the content object is below a threshold or is a bitrate below a threshold and forgoing performance of at least the determining a portion.