Measuring server availability and managing traffic in adaptive bitrate media delivery

摘要

Computer-based systems and methods measure saturation of a media server that transmits media content to a plurality of users via data links. The data buffers of the media server are sampled to ascertain whether they contain data to be transmitted to each buffer's associated destination at the time of the sampling. A saturation score is calculated based on the sampling, such as based on the number of non-empty data buffers. This saturation score can be used in routing new connection requests for the media server. The media server's saturation score can be compared to a threshold saturation score for the media server, with the difference between the scores indicating a present available bandwidth of the data links of the media serve. This process can be repeated periodically so that the saturation score of the media server is continuously updated.

主权项

1. A method of measuring availability of a media server that transmits media content to a plurality of users via data links of the media server, the method comprising:
sampling, by one or more processors, a plurality of data buffers allocated in a random access memory of the media server, wherein the plurality of data buffers comprise socket send buffers that reside in a memory address space of an operating system of the media server, wherein the plurality of data buffers are sampled each at a sampling time instant, to determine whether the data buffers contain data being transmitted at the sampling time instances, wherein each data buffer is associated with one of the plurality of users and the data are stored in the data buffers for transmission to the plurality of users via the data links, and wherein the plurality of data buffers are sampled through API calls to the operating system; calculating, by the one or more processors, a saturation score based on the sampling, wherein the saturation score is indicative of a number of the data buffers containing data being transmitted via the data links at the sampling time instances; and evaluating, by the one or more processors, the saturation score against a threshold saturation score for the media server, wherein the relationship between the scores indicates availability of the media server for additional media transmissions.