Patent Application
20100198977
The present invention relates, in general, to distributed computing, and, more particularly, to automated live stream trees.
As bandwidth, compression, and processing capabilities have advanced in Internet technology, streaming video over the Internet has become more realistically obtainable. Streaming video is the nearly simultaneous play of a media file or other video source located at a remote location. The video data is transmitted from the remote source to the requesting client, which buffers a certain amount of the data before it begins playing the video to the user. The buffering allows the playback to be more smooth when network congestion or latency causes delay in the video data arriving at the client. The goal of the buffer is to optimize the amount of data stored at the client to allow for the smooth play while still providing responsive playback. The video data is generally stored only temporarily on the client during the streaming playback.
In operation, for each client that desires to subscribe to or view the media, the central or origin server typically establishes a high-reliability connection between the central server and the client. This connection includes all intermediate connections between the central server, any intervening servers, and the client. Developers, creating an application for providing streaming video, typically write complex code that explicitly sets up each connection between the origin server and the requesting client. This complex coding makes designing a large streaming video network very time consuming and involved.
In addition to the coding complexity, scalability is also a concern. The central or origin server creates a copy of the video information stream for each client viewing the streaming video. Therefore, the origin server can only service as many clients as its processing limits allow. Once that number is reached, no further clients may subscribe to the stream. Thus, streaming video networks are typically limited to the processing capabilities of the various central or origin servers and the ability of the developers to code the appropriate communications paths between the central server and each particular client.
Before clients 101-103 can observe any video streams, streaming server 100 establishes a dedicated communication channel between streaming server 100 and each of clients 101-103. Streaming server 100 communicates with the various interim servers, servers 104-106, to establish a dedicated channel. Depending on various network conditions, streaming server 100 may provide a communication channel between various interim servers. For example, streaming server 100 establishes communication channel A with client 101. Communication channel A provides a connection between streaming server 100 and server 104, server 104 and server 105, server 105 and server 106, and finally server 106 and client 101. Streaming server 100 establishes communication channel B with client 102 that goes between streaming server 100 and server 104 and then server 104 and client 102. Streaming server 100 also establishes communication channel C with client 103 that goes between streaming server 100 and server 104, server 104 and server 105, and then server 105 and client 103. The streaming video cannot begin playing on clients 101-103 until the corresponding communication channels are established.
The present invention is directed to a system and method for delivering streaming video to subscribing client applications. Instead of requiring the application developers to include complex code logic to facilitate a media connection between the central or origin server and the individual client applications, representative embodiments of the present invention automatically provide for the client application to negotiate with edge servers when available to assist in delivering the streaming content. The user only enters a streaming video resource locator. The transactions occurring between the client application and the edge servers is transparent to the user.
In order to find an available edge server, the client application broadcasts an availability request for any edge servers that may be capable and available to assist the streaming delivery. Any capable and available edge server will send a response back to the client application. The client application will select a particular edge server based on the acknowledgment and any other desirable parameters that may be provided, such as geographic proximity, congestion, efficiency, or the like.
The user enters the streaming video resource locator into the client application, which is then transferred from the client application to the selected edge server. The edge server uses the resource locator to initiate a connection with the origin server to request the streaming video. As the edge server receives the streaming video data from the origin server, it will copy and transmit that video data to any client application that it is connected to and that has requested the streaming video.
The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technical advantages of the present invention in order that the detailed description of the invention that follows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter which form the subject of the claims of the invention. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the conception and specific embodiment disclosed may be readily utilized as a basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out the same purposes of the present invention. It should also be realized by those skilled in the art that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. The novel features which are believed to be characteristic of the invention, both as to its organization and method of operation, together with further objects and advantages will be better understood from the following description when considered in connection with the accompanying figures. It is to be expressly understood, however, that each of the figures is provided for the purpose of illustration and description only and is not intended as a definition of the limits of the present invention.
For a more complete understanding of the present invention, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing, in which:
When a user at client 200 desires to subscribe to a video stream originating at origin server 206, the user enters a locating identifier, such as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), for the desired video stream on origin server 206. Client-player 201 broadcasts a discovery request seeking the best available edge server to use in participating in streaming network 20. Smart edge servers 203-205 receive the discovery request from client-player 201 and analyzes their capability and availability for providing connection to a streaming video in streaming network 20. Smart edge servers 203-205, which receive the discovery request, may be the geographically or electronically closest edge servers that are available to participate in streaming network 20. Client-player 201 receives a discovery acknowledgement from one or more of smart edge servers 203-205 indicating that the server is available. Based on some selection mechanism, such as first acknowledgment received, closest server, lowest traffic, or the like, client-player 201 establishes communication with one of the acknowledging edge servers, such as smart edge server 204, and transmits the URL to smart edge server 204 for obtaining the streaming video. The user does not see any of these management processes that client-player 201 performs with regard to discovering the available edge servers or connecting to the available acknowledging edge server. The user only enters the URL for the desired video stream and believes that a connection is being made directly to origin server 206.
Moreover, the logic for discovering the available edge servers and making the connections to the edge servers is contained in client-player 201. Thus, standard streaming applications that play using client-player 201 can take advantage of the beneficial effects from the various embodiments of the present invention without modification.
A user at client computer 301 also desires to subscribe to the streaming video and enters the URL into client computer 301. Client computer 301 broadcasts discovery requests B-1, B-2, and B-3, which are received by edge servers 303-305. Edge server 304 responds with an acknowledgement to client computer 301. Client computer 301 establishes a connection with edge server 304 and transmits the URL entered by the user to edge server 304. Because edge server 304 is already part of the transmission of the streaming video to client computer 300, it makes another copy of the video stream from central server 306 for transmission to client computer 301. At some point during communication between edge server 304 and central server 306, edge server 304 informs central server 306 that client computer 301 is subscribing to the video stream. This allows central server 306 to manage the implementation of streaming network 30, which also pushes out some of the network workload to edge server 304.
In a similar manner, a user at client 302 desires to subscribe to the streaming video and enters the URL into client computer 302. After making discovery requests C-1, C-2, and C-3, again, received by edge servers 303-305, respectively, client computer 302 makes the connection with edge server 304, which begins making yet another copy of the video stream from central server 306. This copy is then streamed to client computer 302 for display to the user.
It should be noted that while edge server 304 maintains three separate connections for the streaming video to client computers 300-302, the embodiment of the present invention depicted in
It should further be noted that additional or alternative embodiments of the present invention may perform the edge server discovery procedure at anytime while the client computer is active. A user would not necessarily have to make a URL request for a video stream for the client computer to obtain the information and availability of the closest and/or more favorable edge servers.
In step 406, communication is opened between the client application and the selected edge server. A user inputs the resource locator, in step 407, into the client application. This resource locator is forwarded, in step 408, from the client application to the selected edge server. The resource locator identifies the location of the streaming video on a central server. Communication is established using the resource locator, in step 409, between the selected edge server and the central server. The streaming video is then transmitted, in step 410, from the central server to the available one. In step 411, the transmitted streaming video is copied from the selected edge server to the client application.
The program or code segments making up the various embodiments of the present invention may be stored in a computer readable medium or transmitted by a computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave, or a signal modulated by a carrier, over a transmission medium. The “computer readable medium” may include any medium that can store or transfer information. Examples of the computer readable medium include an electronic circuit, a semiconductor memory device, a ROM, a flash memory, an erasable ROM (EROM), a floppy diskette, a compact disk CD-ROM, an optical disk, a hard disk, a fiber optic medium, a radio frequency (RF) link, and the like. The computer data signal may include any signal that can propagate over a transmission medium such as electronic network channels, optical fibers, air, electromagnetic, RF links, and the like. The code segments may be downloaded via computer networks such as the Internet, Intranet, and the like.
Bus 502 is also coupled to input/output (I/O) controller card 505, communications adapter card 511, user interface card 508, and display card 509. The I/O adapter card 505 connects storage devices 506, such as one or more of a hard drive, a CD drive, a floppy disk drive, a tape drive, to computer system 500. The I/O adapter 505 is also connected to a printer (not shown), which would allow the system to print paper copies of information such as documents, photographs, articles, and the like. Note that the printer may be a printer (e.g., dot matrix, laser, and the like), a fax machine, scanner, or a copier machine. Communications card 511 is adapted to couple the computer system 500 to a network 512, which may be one or more of a telephone network, a local (LAN) and/or a wide-area (WAN) network, an Ethernet network, and/or the Internet network. User interface card 508 couples user input devices, such as keyboard 513, pointing device 507, and the like, to the computer system 500. The display card 509 is driven by CPU 501 to control the display on display device 510.
Although the present invention and its advantages have been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. Moreover, the scope of the present application is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments of the process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, means, methods and steps described in the specification. As one of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciate from the disclosure of the present invention, processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps, presently existing or later to be developed that perform substantially the same function or achieve substantially the same result as the corresponding embodiments described herein may be utilized according to the present invention. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to include within their scope such processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps.
The present application is related to co-pending, commonly-assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/263,652 entitled, “NETWORK CONFIGURATION WITH SMART EDGE SERVERS;” and co-pending, commonly-assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/263,074 entitled, “VIRTUAL GROUP CONNECTION,” the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
