CONTENT DISTRIBUTION NETWORK

• US 20170126796A1
• Filed: 11/14/2016
• Published: 05/04/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hollis, Benjamin R., Strand, William Alexander
• Granted Patent: US 10,506,029 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1021 based on client or server locations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media provide content items to clients. In one implementation, a system stores data identifying a plurality of cache servers, the cache servers storing the content items for download by a plurality of clients. The system receives a request from a first one of the clients to download one of the content items. The system selects one or more of the cache servers for providing the requested content item to the first client. The system transmits identifiers of the selected one or more cache servers to the first client, and transmits instructions to the first client. The instructions are operable, when executed by the first client, to determine whether the selected one or more cache servers have a local copy of the requested content item. When the first client determines that a first one of the selected one or more cache servers has a local copy of the requested content item, the first client downloads the requested content item from the first selected cache server.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a request for a content item from a first client computing device;

selecting two or more cache servers from a set of cache servers to provide the requested content item to the first client computing device, the selection based at least on a proximity of the two or more cache servers to the first client computing device;

generating and transmitting, to the first client computing device, identifiers of the two or more cache servers and computer-executable code for causing the first client computing device to process the identifiers to send a request to the two or more cache servers, based at least in part on the identifiers, for an indication of whether the two or more cache servers are storing a local copy of the requested content item;

receiving a request at a first cache server for the local copy of the requested content item; and

transmitting the local copy of the requested content time to the first client computing device.

2. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising storing locations of individual cache servers in the set of cache servers.

3. The computer-implemented method according to claim 2, further comprising:

determining a geographical location of the first client computing device; and

comparing the geographical location of the first client computing device to the locations of the individual cache servers in the set of cache servers to select the two or more cache servers included in the identifiers transmitted to the first client computing device for providing the requested content item.

4. The computer-implemented method according to claim 3, wherein the geographical location of the first client computing device is determined by geolocating based on an internet protocol (IP) address of the first client computing device.

5. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the computer-executable code causes the first client computing device to identify a first cache server having a local copy of the requested content item from the two or more cache servers and to rewrite a hyperlink to identify the first cache server.

6. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the computer executable code causes the first client computing device to process the identifiers to send a request to the two or more cache servers iteratively based on cache server proximity to the first client computing device.

7. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the identifiers of the two or more cache servers are transmitted in an ordered list based on proximity to the first client computing device.

8. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the identifiers are sorted according to one or more criteria, and the computer-executable code, when executed by the first client computing device, is operable to iterate through the sorted identifiers until a first cache server having the local copy of the content item is identified.

9. The computer-implemented method according to claim 8, wherein the one or more criteria includes a geographic or network proximity of the first client to the cache servers, and the identifiers transmitted to the client are sorted in order based on at least the geographic or network proximity of the corresponding cache servers.

10. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the two or more cache servers are operable to preserve computational resources by one or more of:

responding to selected requests by indicating that content items are not available for download, even where the cache servers have local copies of the content items, or

selectively determining not to respond to certain requests.

11. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the identifiers transmitted to the first client computing device include hyperlinks to the two or more cache servers.

12. The computer-implemented method according to claim 11, wherein the hyperlinks include Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of the two or more cache servers.

13. The computer-implemented method according to claim 11, wherein the hyperlinks include Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) of the two or more cache servers, and the first client computing device is operable to request resolution of the URLs into corresponding Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of the two or more cache servers.

14. A system comprising:

at least one processor for executing program instructions; and

at least one computer-readable medium storing the program instructions, the program instructions, when executed by the processor, performing a process comprising;

receiving a request for a content item from a first client computing device;

selecting two or more cache servers from a set of cache servers to provide the requested content item to the first client computing device, the selection based at least on a proximity of the two or more cache servers to the first client computing device;

generating and transmitting, to the first client computing device, identifiers of the two or more cache servers and computer-executable code for causing the first client computing device to process the identifiers to send a request to the two or more cache servers, based at least in part on the identifiers, for an indication of whether the two or more cache servers are storing a local copy of the requested content item;

receiving a request at a first cache server for the local copy of the requested content item; and

transmitting the local copy of the requested content time to the first client computing device.

15. The system according to claim 14, wherein the computer executable code causes the first client computing device to process the identifiers to send a request to the two or more cache servers iteratively based on cache server proximity to the first client computing device.

16. The system according to claim 14, wherein the identifiers of the two or more cache servers are transmitted in an ordered list based on proximity to the first client computing device.

17. The system according to claim 14, wherein the identifiers are sorted according to one or more criteria, and the computer-executable code, when executed by the first client computing device, is operable to iterate through the sorted identifiers until a first cache server having the local copy of the content item is identified.

18. The system according to claim 14, wherein the one or more criteria includes a geographic or network proximity of the first client to the cache servers, and the identifiers transmitted to the client are sorted in order based on at least the geographic or network proximity of the corresponding cache servers.

19. The system according to claim 14, wherein the two or more cache servers are operable to preserve computational resources by one or more of:

responding to selected requests by indicating that content items are not available for download, even where the cache servers have local copies of the content items, or

selectively determining not to respond to certain requests.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing program instructions for performing a method executed by a processor, the method comprising steps performed by the processor of:

receiving a request for a content item from a first client computing device;

selecting two or more cache servers from a set of cache servers to provide the requested content item to the first client computing device, the selection based at least on a proximity of the two or more cache servers to the first client computing device;

generating and transmitting, to the first client computing device, identifiers of the two or more cache servers and computer-executable code for causing the first client computing device to process the identifiers to send a request to the two or more cache servers, based at least in part on the identifiers, for an indication of whether the two or more cache servers are storing a local copy of the requested content item;

receiving a request at a first cache server for the local copy of the requested content item; and

transmitting the local copy of the requested content time to the first client computing device.