Content delivery methods and systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9391847-B2
Application number	US-201414454615-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 7, 2014
Priority date	Aug 8, 2013
Publication date	Jul 12, 2016
Grant date	Jul 12, 2016

Abstract

Aspects of the present disclosure involve provisioning customers of an aggregator, such as a reseller, of a content delivery network (CDN). In one aspect, content requests to the CDN are processed in accordance with the virtual IP (VIP) address at which the request was received, according to a property template bound to the VIP where the template is selected by the customer and only involves discrete parameters for the reseller. In another aspect, cache fills of the network are processed without direct knowledge of the customer origin through a combination of some request attribute, e.g., alias host of the customer, and an attribute of the reseller to make a DNS request to a name server outside the CDN. Another aspect involves receiving a property template selection, an origin and an alias from a customer of the reseller, and providing appropriate DNS entries to validate the customer and provide origin information to the CDN.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A content delivery method comprising:
receiving a selection of one or more property parameters associated with a pre-established property template, the property template associated with processing a content request to a content delivery network and bound to a virtual IP (VIP) address, the selection being received from a customer of an aggregator of services of a content delivery network;
receiving an origin and an alias of the origin, the origin for obtaining content of the customer of the aggregator of services of the content delivery network, the alias of the origin used by the customer of the aggregator for designating content to be served by the content delivery network; and
establishing at least one first domain name system (DNS) record outside the authoritative name servers of the content delivery network, the at least one first DNS record creating an association between the alias of the origin and the origin such that a fill request from the content delivery network may be processed at the origin and at least one second DNS record, the at least one second DNS record creating an association between the alias of the origin and the VIP address bound to the property template.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one first DNS record comprises a combination of the alias and a domain of the aggregator, and the at least one first DNS record is established in an authoritative name server of the aggregator.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the at least one first DNS record comprises the combination of the alias and the domain of the aggregator is only established for a valid customer of the aggregator of services of the content delivery network.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the fill request from the content delivery network may be processed at the origin without the content delivery network having direct information as to the origin.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one first DNS record comprises a CNAME record.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising establishing at least one third DNS record within the authoritative name servers of the customer of the aggregator, the at least one third DNS record creating an association between the alias of the origin and the aggregator of services of the content delivery network.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein a name server of the aggregator of services of the content delivery network is the authoritative name server of the customer of the aggregator.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the property template is one of a discrete plurality of property templates for the aggregator, each property template defining a discrete plurality of property configurations.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the discrete plurality of property configurations include delivery region, cache control setting, domain protocol, origin protocol, query string setting and geo-blocking.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising receiving a content request for content of the customer of the aggregator of services of the content delivery network, the content request received at the VIP address bound to the pre-established property template such that the content request may be processed in accordance with the selected parameters and without the content delivery network maintaining a direct property for the customer of the aggregator.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the aggregator is a reseller.

12. The content delivery method of claim 1 wherein the at least one second DNS record is established outside the authoritative name servers of the content delivery network.

13. A non-transitory computer readable media comprising computer executable instructions to perform a method of managing content delivery in a computer network comprising:
receiving a selection of one or more property parameters associated with a pre-established property template, the property template associated with processing a content request to a content delivery network and bound to a virtual IP (VIP) address, the selection being received from a customer of an aggregator of services of a content delivery network;
receiving an origin and an alias of the origin, the origin for obtaining content of the customer of the aggregator of services of the content delivery network, the alias of the origin used by the customer of the aggregator for designating content to be served by the content delivery network; and
establishing at least one first domain name system (DNS) record outside the authoritative name servers of the content delivery network, the at least one first DNS record creating an association between the alias of the origin and the origin such that a fill request from the content delivery network may be processed at the origin and at least one second DNS record, the at least one second DNS record creating an association between the alias of the origin and the VIP address bound to the property template.

14. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 13 wherein the at least one first DNS record comprises a combination of the alias and a domain of the aggregator, and the at least one DNS record is established in an authoritative name server of the aggregator.

15. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 14 wherein the at least one first DNS record comprises the combination of the alias and the domain of the aggregator is only established for a valid customer of the aggregator of services of the content delivery network.

16. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 15 wherein the fill request from the content delivery network may be processed at the origin without the content delivery network having direct information as to the origin.

17. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 13 wherein the at least one first DNS record comprises a CNAME record.

18. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 13 further comprising establishing at least one third DNS record within the authoritative name servers of the customer of the aggregator, the at least one third DNS record creating an association between the alias of the origin and the aggregator of services of the content delivery network.

19. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 18 wherein a name server of the aggregator of services of the content delivery network is the authoritative name server of the customer of the aggregator.

20. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 13 wherein the property template is one of a discrete plurality of property templates for the aggregator, each property template defining a discrete plurality of property configurations.

21. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 20 wherein the discrete plurality of property configurations include delivery region, cache control setting, domain protocol, origin protocol, query string setting and geo-blocking.

22. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 21 further comprising receiving a content request for content of the customer of the aggregator of services of the content delivery network, the content request received at the VIP address bound to the pre-established property template such that the content request may be processed in accordance with the selected parameters and without the content delivery network maintaining a direct property for the customer of the aggregator.

23. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 13 wherein the aggregator is a reseller.

24. The non-transito

Assignees

• Level 3 Communications Llc

Inventors

• Newton Christopher

Classifications

• G06F40/186

  Templates · CPC title

• H04L45/74

  Address processing for routing · CPC title

• H04L41/50 Primary

  Network service management, e.g. ensuring proper service fulfilment according to agreements · CPC title

• H04L67/06

  specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP] · CPC title

• G06Q20/123

  Shopping for digital content · CPC title