Patent Grant
10623484
The present invention relates to and claims the benefit of the filing date of commonly-owned, co-pending PCT Patent Application No. PCT/JP2010/005129, filed Aug. 28, 2010, which further claims the benefit of priority date of commonly-owned, co-pending Chinese Patent Application No. CN 200910168614.X, filed on Aug. 28, 2009, the entire contents and disclosure of which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
The present invention relates generally to data transmission management method and system, in particular, to a method and system for managing P2P file transmission.
Peer-to-peer technology (P2P for short) is referred as ad-hoc network technology, which depends on computer capability and bandwidth of participants in the network, rather than depends on a few servers. In a P2P structure, every node (peer) simultaneously has functions in such three aspects as information consumer, information provider and information communication etc. In a P2P network, rights and duties possessed by every node are all equal.
Downloadable node list corresponding to the seed file is stored in the original tracker server 106, as shown in table 2 below. Actually, seed server 105 and original tracker server 106 may be hosted in a same physical server. In table 2, assuming that a P2P file is divided into 4 portions, nodes B, C, D possess several blocks of the P2P file respectively. By acquiring the node list, user node A knows it will connects to which nodes to acquire corresponding file blocks. Since node list may change continuously during operation, for example, new node will be added in continuously and original node will exit continuously, user node A may need to communicate with original tracker server 106 periodically during downloading to query the latest node list.
Currently, P2P file transmission takes a significant portion in overall traffic of network transmission bandwidth. P2P communication can lead to abnormal traffic, cause accidental damage to network resource, and such problems as network jam, performance degradation and user dissatisfaction due to P2P communication may affect normal network application, such as WWW, E-mail etc, and normal user is further dissatisfied with slow speed of webpage browsing as well as receiving/sending email. For P2P communication, currently, there is no effective rate-limiting and directing scheme.
In order to solve the problems in the art, the present invention provides an efficient, flexible P2P file transmission management technology. The invention realizes rate-limiting and directing of P2P file transmission mainly by replacing an original tracker server with a setting controllable tracker server, and modifying node list based on predetermined rule in the controllable tracker server.
With the present invention, a network operator can strengthen the controllable tracker server in P2P communication gradually by weakening the original tracker server in P2P communication gradually, and utilize various rules or policies established in advance to manage file transfer of P2P nodes.
Specifically, the invention provides a controllable tracker server for modifying node list of a peer-to-peer P2P file, including: an acquiring means for acquiring a node list in an original tracker server corresponding to a P2P file; a judging means for judging whether the node list needs to be modified according to a predetermined rule; a node list modifying means for modifying the node list in case that the node list needs to be modified; and a returning means for returning the modified node list to a user.
The invention also provides a system for managing transmission of peer-to-peer P2P file, the system including a server processing means, the server processing means further including: a receiving means for receiving P2P seed file requested by a user; a parsing means for parsing the P2P seed file to acquire original tracker server information therein; and a seed file modifying means for modifying the P2P seed file to replace the original tracker server therein with a controllable tracker server.
The invention also provides a method for modifying node list of a peer-to-peer P2P file, including: acquiring a node list in an original tracker server corresponding to a P2P file; judging whether the node list needs to be modified according to a predetermined rule; modifying the node list in case that the node list needs to be modified; and returning the modified node list to a user.
The invention also provides a method for managing transmission of peer-to-peer P2P file, including: acquiring a P2P seed file requested by a user; parsing the P2P seed file to acquire original tracker server information therein; and modifying the P2P seed file to replace the original tracker server therein with a controllable tracker server.
The above description illustrates some advantages of the invention on the whole, and these and other advantages will become more apparent by combining drawings and detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention. The drawings referred in the description are only used to illustrate typical embodiments of the invention, and should not be considered as a limitation to the scope of the invention.
In the following discussion, a large amount of specific details are provided to facilitate thoroughly understand the invention. However, for those skilled in the art, it is evident that it will not affect the understanding of the invention even without these specific details. It should be recognized that, the usage of any of following specific terms is merely for ease of description, thus the invention should not be limited to any specific application that is identified and/or implied by such terms.
Unless otherwise stated, the function described in the invention may be implemented by software or hardware or combination thereof. However, in an embodiment, unless otherwise stated, these functions are performed by processors (such as computers or electronic data processors) based on encoded integrated circuits (such as encoded by computer programs). Generally, the method performed for implementing embodiments of the invention may be a part of operation system or specific application programs, program, module, object or instruction sequence. The software of the invention generally includes various instructions that will be presented as machine readable format by local computers, thus are executable instructions. Further, program includes variables and data structures that are resident in local with respect to the program or that are found in memory. Moreover, various programs described below can be identified by application methods for implementing them in specific embodiment of the invention. Such signal bearing media, when carrying thereon computer readable instructions pointing to the function of the invention, represents embodiments of the invention.
Next, the server processing means 205 parses a.torrent file, detects tracker server information therein, and when it finds that tracker server in the seed file is a non-controllable tracker server, i.e., original tracker server 209, it modifies a.torrent file and replaces the original tracker server 209 therein with the controllable tracker server 206. The controllable tracker server 206 is used to remove dependence of node A on original tracker server 209, such that node A does not need to communicate with original tracker server 209 during subsequent downloading of P2P seed file, but only with the controllable tracker server 206.
The IP address of the controllable tracker server may be stored in the server processing means 205, or may be stored in a predetermined rule library 207. When IP address of the controllable tracker server is stored in the predetermined rule library 207, the server processing means 205 needs to communicate with the predetermined rule library 207 to acquire the IP address of the controllable tracker server.
It should be particularly noted that, although the invention is described with one controllable tracker server 206, it can use a plurality of controllable tracker servers in practice. When a plurality of controllable tracker servers is used, one main controllable tracker server and several backup controllable tracker servers may be set in a.torrent file.
The modified seed file will be returned to node A, and node A will further communicate with controllable tracker server 206 according to index of the seed file to acquire node list.
The controllable tracker server 206 will acquire node list corresponding to the seed file from the original tracker server 209, and judge whether the node list needs to be modified according to predetermined rule acquired from the predetermined rule library 207.
The predetermined rule may be that a node that is not in a same region as the user is filtered out from the node list. According to an embodiment of the invention, node A is not in a same cell as nodes C, D, thus the controllable tracker server 206 will delete nodes C, D from node list. The deleted node list is shown as table 4 below.
A method for judging whether node A is in a same region as other node via subnet mask is described in detail below.
Assuming that subnet mask is 24 bits, i.e., subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, there are 255 IP addresses available for such subnet mask, thus it can be easily judged whether two IP addresses are in a same region by AND operation between subnet mask and IP address. For example, IP address 10.1.1.1 and IP address 10.1.1.2 are nodes in a same region. For subnet mask having 16 bits, i.e., subnet mask is 255.255.0.0, IP address 10.1.1.1 and IP address 10.1.2.13 belong to a same region. As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, although the invention makes description by taking subnet mask having 16 bits and 24 bits as examples, subnet mask having other number of bits may also be used, such as 22 bits, 25 bits and the like, to judge whether two IP addresses are in a same region.
According to an embodiment of the invention, only node within a regional network is allowed to transmit P2P file, as can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the range of regional network can be expanded to multi-level access network, i.e., all nodes within an access network with same level are allowed to transmit P2P file.
According to another embodiment of the invention, in case that current network transmission load exceeds a predetermined threshold, for example, it is above a percent value, node that is not in a same region as the user is filtered out from the node list.
According to still another embodiment of the invention, during network transmission peak time, for example, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., node that is not in a same region as the user is filtered out from the node list.
According to still another embodiment of the invention, if user's subscription state meets a predetermined condition, for example, for users who pay monthly, node that is not in a same region as the user is filtered out from the node list, or for non-VIP users, node that is not in a same region as the user is filtered out from the node list.
According to still another embodiment of the invention, at least one specific node is filtered out from the node list, for example, a node that is known to specially propagate illegal works is filtered out.
As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, other predetermined rule can be established according to the demand of network operator to achieve limitation on P2P communication node.
The controllable tracker server 206 can further determine whether the deleted node contains file block of the P2P file that is not contained in un-deleted node. For example, assuming node B does not store all of the file blocks of the P2P file, and node B only stores file blocks 1, 2, 3 but not file block 4, then node A can not acquire file block 4 from node B according to the above modified node list (table 4), and then the controllable tracker server 206 may cancel the modification to the node list. The un-modified node list can still be returned to user.
In case that node list may be modified, the modified node list is sent to an edge router 302, and in turn is returned to node A. After node A acquires the modified node list, it communicates with node in node list, e.g. node B, to acquire the desired P2P file block. This not only can increase downloading efficiency of node A, but also can reduce communication load of the entire network.
Since the modified seed file can be cached at the predetermined rule library 207 or server processing means 205, what needs to be cached are modified seed file and seed file before modification. Caching of seed file before modification can facilitate to judge whether subsequent user requests the same seed file. The seed file before modification can be stored in form of seed file, or the verification code thereof can be stored. Caching of the verification code of seed file can further save storage space, but it needs to consume more computation resource to calculate the verification code of requested seed file. When node E also issues a request for the same seed file a.torrent through edge router 202, the server processing means 205 may send the modified seed file to node E, such that node E communicates with the controllable tracker server 206. The controllable tracker server 206 modifies node list according to predetermined rule, and returns it to node E.
Node A may communicate with node B and node D′ in its own region according to the information in table 5.
As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the node D′ may also optionally store a portion of file blocks in node D, for example, it only stores file block 4 but not file block 3. This can further save storage space in mapping node, and will not prevent node A from acquiring the P2P file.
In the above embodiment, node D′ is initiated and P2P file segments in node D are copied to node D′, this may consume some network resource, however, once node D′ is initiated in region 301, when other node in region 301 hereafter requests the same P2P file, corresponding resource can be quickly acquired from local node. In order to enhance storage efficiency, the P2P file can be stored in node D′ for a predetermined period of time, for example, one week, or one month etc.
As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, node D′ can further meet additional rules besides the predetermined rules. For example, not only node D′ is in the same region network as node A, but also node D′ is only initiated during a period that is not network transmission peak time.
According to an embodiment of the invention, although the controllable tracker server modifies node list, the controllable tracker server may still communicate with the original tracker server periodically to acquire updated node list corresponding to the P2P seed file, and modify the updated node list again according predetermined rule. This is because, if the controllable tracker server is notified of addition and deletion of a node that communicates with original tracker server, an updated node list can be maintained in the controllable tracker server, the controllable tracker server may modify the updated node list, and send the modified updated node list to user node A.
The modified node list is shown in above table 4. The modified node list is returned to user in step 614.
As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the predetermined rule is not limit to the above mentioned embodiments, instead, it can have various variations, including: node that is not in a same region as the user is filtered out from the node list in case that current network transmission load exceeds a predetermined threshold, node that is not in a same region as the user is filtered out from the node list during network transmission peak time, node that is not in a same region as the user is filtered out from the node list if user's subscription state meets a predetermined condition, or at least one specific node is filtered out from the node list.
If the determination result is no, i.e., all the file blocks contained in the deleted node can be found in the un-deleted node, then process returns to node III and proceeds to corresponding steps in
As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, each of the above operation process can be implemented by executable program that is stored in a computer program product. The program product defines functions of various embodiments, and carries various signals including (but not limit to): 1) information permanently stored on non-erasable storage media; 2) information stored on erasable storage media; or 3) information transferred to a computer via communication media including wireless communication (such as via computer network or telephone network), specifically, including information downloaded from Internet and other network.
Various embodiments of the invention can provide many advantages, including those that are illustrated in summary of the invention and that can be derived from technical solution itself. However, whether one embodiment can gain all advantages, and whether such advantages are considered as substantial improvement, they are not limitation to the invention. Meanwhile, various implementations mentioned above are merely for illustration purpose, those skilled in the art can make various modifications and alternations to the above implementations without departing from the substance of the invention. The scope of the invention is entirely defined by the appended claims.
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| 2009 1 0168614 | Aug 2009 | CN | national |
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| WO2011/024418 | 3/3/2011 | WO | A |
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