Network Performance Profiles for CDN Selection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Content delivery systems face latency and slowdowns due to overloaded origin servers and varying network performance across different communication service providers, which existing content delivery networks struggle to mitigate effectively.
Innovation Solution
A control system that associates end user devices with network performance profiles to select the most optimal content delivery nodes based on packet transit time, throughput, response latency, and connection establishment delay, thereby predicting and improving network performance for content retrieval.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If content is delivered through multiple ISPs and packet networks, then content delivery coverage is improved, but latency and network performance variability worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a control system as an intermediary between end-user devices and content delivery nodes. This control system receives domain name lookup requests, associates devices with network performance profiles, and selects optimal content delivery nodes based on predicted network performance. By mediating the selection process, the system adapts to varying ISP and packet network conditions without requiring end users to manually configure multiple delivery paths, thus maintaining low latency while achieving broad content delivery coverage across different network providers.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-establishing network performance profiles for different ISPs and packet networks before actual content delivery occurs. These profiles contain pre-measured performance characteristics that are stored and ready for quick reference. When a content delivery request arrives, the control system can immediately match the user's network against these pre-analyzed profiles and select the best content delivery node without performing real-time network measurements, thereby reducing latency while ensuring optimal delivery paths are chosen across multiple network providers.
2Reliability
If origin servers handle all content requests, then content delivery accuracy is maintained, but server overload and response time worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the content delivery function by introducing multiple content delivery nodes distributed across different geographic regions and network providers. These nodes store copies of content and can independently serve requests, dividing the load from origin servers. The control system manages this segmented architecture by selecting appropriate content delivery nodes based on network performance profiles, ensuring that content is delivered accurately from the correct node while origin servers only handle content updates and node synchronization, thereby maintaining delivery accuracy while dramatically improving response time.
3Speed
If content delivery nodes are distributed geographically, then access speed is improved, but network performance variability across ISPs worsens
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamics by making the content delivery node selection adaptive rather than static. The control system continuously receives domain name lookup requests and dynamically selects content delivery nodes based on real-time network performance profiles associated with different ISPs and packet networks. This dynamic selection process allows the system to leverage geographically distributed content delivery nodes for fast access while simultaneously adapting to the varying performance characteristics of different network providers, ensuring consistent delivery performance across diverse network conditions.
Data Source
AI summary
A communication system exchanges communications between end user devices, content delivery nodes (CDN) of a content delivery system, and a control system that selects CDNs of the content delivery system. The control system receives a domain name lookup request issued by an end user device for retrieving content cached by one or more CDNs of the content delivery system. The control system associates the end user device with a network performance profile to select a CDN of the content delivery system. The control system transfers a network address associated with the selected CDN for receipt by the end user device responsive to the domain name lookup request.