Delivering multimedia services

摘要

Disclosed is a scalable, hierarchical, distributed network architecture and processes for the delivery of high-performance, end-to-end online multimedia services, including Internet services such as World Wide Web access. The network architecture connects a high-speed private backbone to multiple network access points of the Internet, to a network operation center, to a back office system, and to multiple regional servers in regional data centers. Each of the regional servers connects to several caching servers in modified head-ends, which in turn connect via fiber optics to many neighborhood nodes. Finally, each node connects via coaxial cable to multiple end-user systems. The processes include those for replicating and caching frequently-accessed content, and multicasting content customized per region or locality.

主权项

1. A system for delivery of multimedia services comprising:
at least two regional servers, each coupled to a high-speed network backbone carrying content, a first regional server configured to customize content received from a content provider to form a first version of multicast content, a second regional server configured to customize content received from the content provider to form a second version of multicast content, and the first and second regional servers configured to provide a second level of caching for the content received from the content provider; and a plurality of caching servers, including a first caching server coupled to the first regional server and a second caching server coupled to the second regional server, each caching server configured to receive and cache the customized multicast content received from the coupled regional server responsive to receiving a request from an end-user system for the customized multicast content, and to provide the customized multicast content formed by the coupled regional server to the requesting end-user system.