A METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SUPPORTING A MULTICAST RESPONSE TO A UNICAST REQUEST FOR A DOCUMENT

摘要

A method for managing a document includes retrieving the document in response to a request made by the first computer system at a first location. The document is multicasted to the first computer system at the first location and a second computer system at a second location based on a likelihood that that information will be consumed by this second computer system. A network operations center (130) includes a master proxy server (380). The master proxy server (380) retrieves a document in response to a request made by a first computer system at a first location. A multicast server (390) is coupled to the master proxy server (380). The multicast server (390) transmits the document to the first computer system at the first location and a second computer system at a second location. All decisions about multicasting documents to non-requesting computer systems are based on known, stated, and observed information profiles of the non-requesting computer systems as well as the content associations related to the active multicast channels.