NETWORK ROUTING MODIFICATIONS FOR DISTRIBUTION OF DATA

摘要

The transmission of multiple copies of data to other computing devices is optimized by minimizing the number of copies of such data transmitted through an expensive portion of the network. A store-and-forward methodology is utilized to transmit only a single copy through the expensive portion and the data is subsequently forked into multiple copies directed to multiple destination computing devices. Computing devices that are not intended destinations can be conscripted as intermediate computing devices, if appropriate to minimize copies of the data transmitted through an expensive portion. Additionally, accommodation can be made for data that is intolerant of out-of-order delivery by utilizing adaptive protocols that avoid mechanisms that may result in out-of-order delivery for data intolerant of such and by utilizing packet sorting at data convergence points to reorder the data. Different protocol settings can be utilized to transmit data across different portions of the network.

主权项

1. A method of distributing data to multiple computing devices, the method comprising the steps of:
identifying a source computing device comprising the data and at least two intended destination computing devices to which copies of the data will be distributed; identifying at least one expensive network segment that is part of both a first network path between the source computing device and a first of the at least two intended destination computing device and a second network path between the source computing device and a second of the at least two intended destination computing devices, such that multiple copies of the data would be transmitted, separately, along the identified expensive network segment; identifying an intermediate computing device such that data transmitted from the source computing device to the intermediate computing device would be transmitted along the identified expensive network segment, but data transmitted from the intermediate computing device to multiple ones of the at least two intended destination computing devices would avoid transmission along the identified network segment; and generating a store-and-forward routing comprising: transmission of a copy of the data from the source computing device, through the identified expensive network segment, to the identified intermediate computing device; storage of the transmitted copy of the data on the intermediate computing device; and transmission of copies of the data from the intermediate computing device to multiple ones of the at least two intended destination computing devices.