Managing content delivery network service providers

• US 8,583,776 B2
• Filed: 08/06/2012
• Issued: 11/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Richardson, David R., Marshall, Bradley E., Sivasubramanian, Swaminathan, Saraf, Tal
• Primary Examiner(s): SALL, EL HADJI MALICK
• Application Number:
  US13/567,429
• Publication Number:
  US 20120303819A1
• Time in Patent Office: 463 Days
• Field of Search: 709/220, 709/223, 709/226, 709/200, 709/228, 725/145
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1023 based on a hash applied to IP addresses or costs
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

A system, method, and computer readable medium for managing CDN service providers are provided. A network storage provider storing one or more resources on behalf of a content provider obtains client computing device requests for content. The network storage provider processes the client computing device requests and determines whether a subsequent request for the resource should be directed to a CDN service provider as a function of the updated or processed by the network storage provider storage component.

Claims

1. A system for managing content requests comprising:

one or more computing devices associated with a network storage provider, the one or more computing devices operative to;

obtain a client computing device domain name system (DNS) query from a client computing device, the DNS query corresponding to a resource maintained by the network storage provider on behalf of a content provider; and

in response to the DNS query;

determine whether a subsequent request for the resource corresponding to the DNS query should be received by a storage component associated with the network storage provider or by one or more content delivery network (CDN) service providers by comparing a financial cost attributed to the content provider for provision of the requested resource on the behalf of the content provider using a storage component associated with the network storage provider and individual ones of the one or more CDN service providers;

select one of a resource identifier corresponding to one of the one or more CDN service providers or an IP address of a storage component associated with the network storage provider based on a financial cost for providing the requested resource; and

cause the return of the selected resource identifier or IP address.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein selecting one of a resource identifier corresponding to one of the one or more CDN service providers or an IP address of a storage component associated with the network storage provider is based on a financial cost for providing the requested resource satisfying a cost criteria.

3. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein the cost criteria corresponds to a lowest financial cost for providing the requested resource.

4. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the DNS query from the client computing device is associated with an embedded resource.

5. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more computing devices associated with the network storage provider is further operative to cause the registration of a CDN service provider such that the CDN service provider will begin providing the requested resource.

6. The system as recited in claim 5, wherein the registration of the CDN service provider is completed automatically without requiring additional interaction from the content provider.

7. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein selecting one of a resource identifier corresponding to one of the one or more CDN service providers or an IP address of a storage component associated with the network storage provider is further based on at least one of a characteristic of the content provider and a characteristic of the client computing device.

8. A method for managing resource requests comprising:

obtaining a domain name system (DNS) query from a client computing device, the DNS query corresponding to a resource maintained by a network storage provider on behalf of a content provider; and

in response to the DNS query;

determining a financial cost corresponding to each of a storage component associated with the network storage provider and a storage component associated with a content delivery network (CDN) service provider respectively providing the requested resource; and

transmitting one of a resource identifier corresponding to the CDN service provider or an IP address of the storage component associated with the network storage provider as a function of at least one of the determined financial costs.

9. The method as recited in claim 8, wherein the financial cost corresponds to a cost attributed to the content provider for the provision of the requested resource on the behalf of the content provider.

10. The method as recited in claim 8, wherein transmitting one of a resource identifier corresponding to the CDN service provider or an IP address of the storage component associated with the network storage provider is a function of at least one of the determined financial costs satisfying a cost criteria.

11. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the cost criteria is a cost threshold.

12. The method as recited in claim 8, wherein transmitting one of a resource identifier corresponding to the CDN service provider or an IP address of the storage component associated with the network storage provider is further based on at least one other request routing criterion.

13. The method as recited in claim 12, wherein the request routing criterion includes at least one of a total number of requests obtained from client computing devices for a resource over a defined period of time, trends regarding an increase in requests from client computing devices for the resource, and trends regarding a decrease in requests from client computing devices for the resource.

14. The method as recited in claim 12, wherein the at least one other request routing criterion includes cost information.

15. A system comprising:

one or more computing devices operative to;

obtain a domain name system (DNS) query from a client computing device, the DNS query corresponding to a request for a resource maintained by a network storage provider on behalf of a content provider; and

in response to the DNS query;

determine a financial cost corresponding to each of one or more content delivery network (CDN) service providers respectively providing the requested resource, wherein the financial cost corresponds to a cost attributed to the content provider for providing the resource by each of the one or more CDN service providers respectively;

select a resource identifier associated with one of the one or more CDN service providers based on a financial cost for providing the resource; and

provide the selected resource identifier, wherein the selected resource identifier is provided as an alternative to identifying an IP address associated with the network storage provider.

16. The system as recited in claim 15, wherein selecting a resource identifier is based on a financial cost satisfying a cost criteria.

17. The system as recited in claim 16, wherein the cost criteria is a cost threshold.

18. The system as recited in claim 15, wherein providing the selected resource identifier corresponding to a CDN service provider is further based on at least one other request routing criterion.

19. The system as recited in claim 18, wherein the at least one other request routing criterion includes a volume of request information.

20. The system as recited in claim 19, wherein the volume of request information includes at least one of a total number of requests obtained from client computing devices for a resource over a defined period of time, trends regarding an increase in requests from client computing devices for the resource, and trends regarding a decrease in requests from client computing devices for the resource.

21. The system as recited in claim 15, wherein the selected resource identifier is provided as an alternative to identifying an IP address associated with the network storage provider when a CDN service provider is associated with a quality of service metric meeting a content provider metric threshold for providing the requested resource.

22. The system as recited in claim 18, wherein the at least one other request routing criterion comprises at least one of financial cost information, quality of service information, and volume of request information.

23. A system comprising:

one or more client computing devices operative to;

obtain a domain name system (DNS) query from a client computing device, the DNS query corresponding to a request for a resource maintained by a network storage provider on behalf of a content provider; and

responsive to the DNS query, provide one of an alternative resource identifier corresponding to a content delivery network (CDN) service provider or an IP address of a storage component associated with the network storage provider as a function of a financial cost criteria associated with the resource maintained by the network storage provider on behalf of the content provider;

wherein providing one of an alternative resource identifier corresponding to a CDN service provider or an IP address of a storage component associated with the network storage provider includes;

identifying one or more service providers;

for each of the identified one or more service providers, identify a financial cost for providing the requested resource by the respective service provider on behalf of the content provider; and

selecting a service provider from the one or more service providers that satisfies the financial cost criteria.

24. The system as recited in claim 23, wherein the financial cost criteria is a cost threshold.

25. The system as recited in claim 23, wherein the financial cost criteria is a lowest financial cost.