METHOD FOR DETERMINING METRICS OF A CONTENT DELIVERY AND GLOBAL TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT NETWORK

• US 20110099290A1
• Filed: 01/06/2011
• Published: 04/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/19/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Gupta, Ajit K., Swildens, Eric Sven-Johan, Day, Richard David
• Granted Patent: US 8,195,831 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/235
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5083 wherein the managed service relates to web hosting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4541 Directories for service discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• 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 67/101 based on network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1027 Persistence of sessions during load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1038 Load balancing arrangements to avoid a single path through a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

A method for determining metrics of a content delivery and global traffic management network provides service metric probes that determine the service availability and metric measurements of types of services provided by a content delivery machine. Latency probes are also provided for determining the latency of various servers within a network. Service metric probes consult a configuration file containing each DNS name in its area and the set of services. Each server in the network has a metric test associated with each service supported by the server which the service metric probes periodically performs metric tests on and records the metric test results which are periodically sent to all of the DNS servers in the network. DNS servers use the test result updates to determine the best server to return for a given DNS name. The latency probe calculates the latency from its location to a client'"'"'s location using the round trip time for sending a packet to the client to obtain the latency value for that client. The latency probe updates the DNS servers with the clients'"'"' latency data. The DNS server uses the latency test data updates to determine the closest server to a client.

Claims

1-9. -9. (canceled)

10. A process for determining server performance metrics in a network, comprising:

determining service availability and metric measurements of at least one service provided by a content delivery server using a service metric probe resident on a server;

receiving one or more user weightings for traffic that indicate more traffic should be sent to one address of a content delivery server compared to another;

determining, by a DNS server, for a given DNS name, a content delivery server address to return to a requester using updates to the service availability and metric measurements and the one or more user weightings.

11. The process of claim 10, wherein the metric measurements comprise at least one metric selected from the group of:

CPU metric, memory metric, SNMP metric, network metric, and SCSI metric.

12. The process of claim 10, wherein the metric measurements comprise an overall load metric determined based on metrics reflecting a load on a content delivery server.

13. The process of claim 10, wherein the at least one service includes any of:

HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, streaming media, and generic SNMP.

14. The process of claim 10, further comprising periodically performing metric tests on content delivery servers within a service metric probe area, and wherein the service metric probe records metric results from the periodic tests.

15. A program storage medium readable by a computer, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the computer to perform method steps for determining server performance metrics in a network, comprising the steps of:

determining service availability and metric measurements of at least one service provided by a content delivery server using a service metric probe resident on a server;

receiving one or more user weightings for traffic that indicate more traffic should be sent to one address of a content delivery server compared to another;

determining, by a DNS server, for a given DNS name, a content delivery server address to return to a requester using updates to the service availability and metric measurements and the one or more user weightings.

16. The program storage medium of claim 15, wherein the metric measurements comprise at least one metric selected from the group of:

CPU metric, memory metric, SNMP metric, network metric, and SCSI metric.

17. The program storage medium of claim 15, wherein the metric measurements comprise an overall load metric determined based on metrics reflecting a load on a content delivery server.

18. The program storage medium of claim 15, wherein the at least one service includes any of:

HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, streaming media, and generic SNMP.

19. The program storage medium of claim 15, further comprising periodically performing metric tests on content delivery servers within a service metric probe area, and wherein the service metric probe records metric results from the periodic tests.

20. An apparatus for a determining server performance metrics in a network, comprising:

a service metric probe resident on a server that determines service availability and metric measurements of at least one service provided by a content delivery server;

a user interface that receives one or more user weightings for traffic that indicate more traffic should be sent to one address of a content delivery server compared to another;

a DNS server that, for a given DNS name, determines a content delivery server address to return to a requester using updates to the service availability and metric measurements and the one or more user weightings.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the metric measurements comprise at least one metric selected from the group of:

CPU metric, memory metric, SNMP metric, network metric, and SCSI metric.

22. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the metric measurements comprise an overall load metric determined based on metrics reflecting a load on a content delivery server.

23. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the at least one service includes any of:

HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, streaming media, and generic SNMP.

24. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the service metric probe periodically performs metric tests on content delivery servers within a service metric probe area, and wherein the service metric probe records metric results from the periodic tests.