Marker based reporting system for hybrid content delivery network and peer to peer network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11503115-B2
Application number	US-202017138713-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 30, 2020
Priority date	Sep 20, 2017
Publication date	Nov 15, 2022
Grant date	Nov 15, 2022

Abstract

This document describes marker based approaches for a CDN to monitor and report on the amount of traffic that it is serving on behalf of content providers. They are particularly useful in hybrid delivery scenarios. Hybrid delivery scenarios means that a client may obtain content, such as a given multimedia stream, from one or more servers in the CDN, or from one or more peers in a peer to peer network. The amount of data served from the peer network is referred to herein as the “offload”, as delivery of that data has been offloaded from the CDN platform.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method performed by a multimedia delivery system, the method comprising:
delivering a multimedia stream to a client device, partially from one or more servers and partially from one or more peer devices distinct from the one or more servers;
requiring the client device to request designated portions of the multimedia stream from the one or more servers, rather than the one or more peer devices;
allowing the client device to request portions of the multimedia stream, other than the designated portions, without said requirement;
receiving, at one of the one or more servers, a request from the client device for data in the multimedia stream;
identifying how much of the data in the request from the client device corresponds to the designated portions;
based at least in part on said identifying, estimating offload for the multimedia stream, the estimated offload reflecting an amount of data in the multimedia stream delivered to the client device from the peer devices relative to an amount of data in the multimedia stream delivered to the client device from the one or more servers; and,
applying the estimated offload in performing at least one of:
(i) monitoring of the multimedia delivery system,
(ii) offload reporting to a content provider that provides the multimedia stream, and
(iii) managing load in the multimedia delivery system.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the estimated offload comprises a real-time offload measure.

3. The method of claim 1 , comprising applying the estimated offload in performing:
(i) monitoring of the multimedia delivery system.

4. The method of claim 1 , comprising applying the estimated offload in performing:
(ii) offload reporting to a content provider that provides the multimedia stream.

5. The method of claim 1 , comprising applying the estimated offload in performing:
(iii) managing load in the multimedia delivery system.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising adjusting a routing of requests from client devices to the one or more servers, based at least in part on the estimated offload.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the designated portions are designated in accord with the following formula:
Marker Size(MS)=min(MSL,MBSZ×ceil(MSL×MPPM/1,000,000/MBSZ))

where: ceil is a ceiling function, MSL is an actual length of a marker section, MPPM is a marker parts per million ratio, and MBSZ is a size for a block of marker data.

8. A multimedia delivery system, comprising:
A. one or more servers;
B. one or more peer devices distinct from the one or more servers;
C. a client device comprising at least one hardware processor and memory storing a player defined by computer readable instructions for execution on the at least one hardware processor, the player comprising computer readable instructions to:
request a multimedia stream partially from the one or more servers and partially from the one or more peer devices;
require the client device to request designated portions of the multimedia stream from the one or more servers, rather than the one or more peer devices;
allow the client device to request portions of the multimedia stream, other than the designated portions, without said requirement;
send a request for data in the multimedia stream to one of the one or more servers;

D. the one of the one or more servers comprising at least one hardware processor and memory storing computer readable instructions for execution on the at least one hardware processor to:
receive the request from the client device for data in the multimedia stream;
identify how much of the data in the request from the client device corresponds to the designated portions;
based at least in part on said identifying, estimate offload for the multimedia stream, the estimated offload reflecting an amount of data in the multimedia stream delivered to the client device from the peer devices relative to an amount of data in the multimedia stream delivered to the client device from the one or more servers; and,

E. the multimedia delivery system comprising at least one hardware processor and memory storing computer readable instructions for execution on the at least one hardware processor to:
apply the estimated offload in performing at least one of:
(i) monitoring of the multimedia delivery system,
(ii) offload reporting to a content provider that provides the multimedia stream, and
(iii) managing load in the multimedia delivery system.

9. The multimedia delivery system of claim 8 , wherein the estimated offload comprises a real-time offload measure.

10. The multimedia delivery system of claim 8 , wherein applying the estimated offload comprises:
(i) monitoring of the multimedia delivery system.

11. The multimedia delivery system of claim 8 , wherein applying the estimated offload comprises:
(ii) offload reporting to a content provider that provides the multimedia stream.

12. The multimedia delivery system of claim 8 , wherein applying the estimated offload comprises:
(iii) managing load in the multimedia delivery system.

13. The multimedia delivery system of claim 8 , wherein applying the estimated offload comprises: adjusting a routing of requests from client devices to the one or more servers, based at least in part on the estimated offload.

14. The multimedia delivery system of claim 8 , wherein the designated portions are designated in accord with the following formula:
Marker Size(MS)=min(MSL,MBSZ×ceil(MSL×MPPM/1,000,000/MBSZ))

where: ceil is a ceiling function, MSL is an actual length of a marker section, MPPM is a marker parts per million ratio, and MBSZ is a size for a block of marker data.

Assignees

• Akamai Tech Inc

Inventors

• Singhal Rahul
• Geyer Eric K
• Makholm Henning
• Mortensen Christian Worm

Classifications

• H04L67/1097

  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] · CPC title

• H04L67/51

  Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services · CPC title

• H04L65/612 Primary

  for unicast · CPC title

• H04N21/20

  Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof · CPC title

• H04L67/564

  Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data · CPC title