Fault Tolerant Capacity Exchange

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2019058902-A1
Application number	US-201816165473-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 19, 2018
Priority date	Jun 4, 2015
Publication date	Feb 21, 2019
Grant date	—

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatuses are described for fault tolerant network storage and delivery of recorded content. Two or more network digital video recorders may each receive a plurality of requests to record, archive, and/or play back content items, such as television programs. Each network digital video recorder may receive capacity reports of statistics such as storage and/or bandwidth from one or more other network digital video recorders. At least one of the network digital video recorders may determine whether, based on a network capacity, to record, archive, and/or playback content items. The methods, systems, and apparatuses may accommodate equipment failures that lead to partitions between network digital video recorders.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method comprising:
determining, by a first network digital video recorder (nDVR) at a first location, capacity information indicating a current utilization of the first nDVR; sending, by the first nDVR to a second nDVR at a second location, the capacity information; receiving, by the first nDVR, capacity information indicating a current utilization of the second nDVR; storing, based on the capacity information indicating the current utilization of the first nDVR and on the capacity information indicating the current utilization of the second nDVR, combined capacity information of the first nDVR and the second nDVR; and determining, from the combined capacity information, whether to record one or more segments of content, wherein the capacity information for the first nDVR indicates the current utilization of storing other segments of content.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein sending the capacity information comprises sending, by a capacity exchange server in the first nDVR, the capacity information on a periodic basis.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
storing, after failing to receive capacity information indicating current utilization of a third nDVR, an indication regarding the current utilization of the third nDVR.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
determining, by the first nDVR and based on the combined capacity information, rankings of locations to store each segment of the content among the first nDVR and the second nDVR; and storing, by the first nDVR, segments of the content having a ranking indicating the first nDVR as a primary location.

5 . The method of claim 1 ,
wherein sending the capacity information comprises sending a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) POST message to the second nDVR.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
retrieving, by a media recorder server of the first nDVR, the stored combined capacity information.

7 . The method of claim 6 ,
wherein retrieving the stored combined capacity information comprises sending a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) GET message.

8 . The method of claim 1 ,
wherein the capacity information indicating the current utilization of the first nDVR indicates current disk writing activity and a maximum capacity disk writing activity.

9 . The method of claim 1 ,
wherein the capacity information indicating the current utilization of the first nDVR indicates current disk reading activity and a maximum capacity disk reading activity.

10 . The method of claim 1 ,
wherein the capacity information indicating the current utilization of the first nDVR indicates current network activity and a maximum capacity network activity.

11 . The method of claim 1 ,
wherein the capacity information indicating the current utilization of the first nDVR indicates current computing activity and a maximum capacity computing activity.

12 . A method comprising:
determining, by a first network digital video recorder (nDVR) at a first location, first capacity information indicating a current utilization of the first nDVR; sending, by the first nDVR to a second nDVR at a second location, the first capacity information; receiving, by the first nDVR, second capacity information indicating a current utilization of the second nDVR; determining, for segments of content to be recorded, and based on the first capacity information and on the second capacity information, rankings of the first nDVR and the second nDVR; and recording, by the first nDVR and based on the rankings, at least a portion of the segments of content.

13 . The method of claim 12 ,
wherein the first capacity information indicates a current utilization of recording capabilities by the first nDVR.

14 . The method of claim 12 ,
wherein a ranking for one of the segments prioritizes the second nDVR over the first nDVR.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the method further comprises:
determining, for each of the segments, a quantity of copies to be recorded.

16 . A system comprising:
a first network digital video recorder (nDVR) at a first location; and a second nDVR at a second location; wherein the first nDVR is configured to:
determine first capacity information indicating a current utilization of the first nDVR;
send the first capacity information to the second nDVR;
receive second capacity information indicating a current utilization of the second nDVR;
determine, for segments of content to be recorded, and based on the first capacity information and on the second capacity information, rankings of the first nDVR and the second nDVR; and
record, based on the rankings, at least a portion of the segments; and
wherein the second nDVR is configured to:
send the second capacity information.

17 . The system of claim 16 , wherein the second nDVR is further configured to:
record, based on the rankings, one or more of the segments.

18 . The system of claim 16 ,
wherein the first capacity information indicates a current utilization of recording capabilities by the first nDVR, and wherein the second capacity information indicates a current utilization of recording capabilities by the second nDVR.

19 . The system of claim 16 ,
wherein the first nDVR is configured to determine a quantity of copies of each segment to be recorded, and wherein the second nDVR is configured to determine the quantity of copies of each segment to be recorded.

20 . The system of claim 16 ,
wherein each of the first nDVR and the second nDVR record a same segment of the content.

Assignees

• Comcast Cable Comm Llc

Inventors

• Kipp Neill
• Trang Martin
• Xu Jiang

Classifications

• H04N21/8456

  by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments · CPC title

• H04N21/23113

  involving housekeeping operations for stored content, e.g. prioritizing content for deletion because of storage space restrictions (storage management, e.g. defragmentation G06F3/0604; snloading stored programs G06F9/445; housekeeping operations in file systems, e.g. deletion policies G06F16/10; buffering arrangements in a network node or in an end terminal in packet networks H04L49/90) · CPC title

• H04N21/2747

  Remote storage of video programmes received via the downstream path, e.g. from the server · CPC title

• H04N21/23103 Primary

  using load balancing strategies, e.g. by placing or distributing content on different disks, different memories or different servers (storage management G06F3/0604; allocation of resources considering the load in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/505; techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system G06F9/5083; access to distributed or replicated servers, e.g. load balancing, in data networks H04L67/1001) · CPC title