QoS Control in Content Delivery via Adaptive Downgrade
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Solution Overview
Problem
Content delivery systems face overload issues when multiple user devices request content simultaneously, leading to retries that worsen the overload and potentially cause system outages, as existing technologies lack effective mechanisms to manage network congestion and reduce the demand on overloaded network components.
Innovation Solution
The system sends messages to user devices to voluntarily downgrade their quality demands, such as switching from 1080p to 720p video resolution, when a network element becomes overloaded, allowing them to reduce retries and alleviate the load, with messages being adjusted based on the severity of the overload and user responses.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If user devices continue to request high-quality content segments during network overload, then content delivery quality is maintained, but network overload worsens and system stability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts content quality parameters based on real-time network conditions. When overload is detected, the origin server modifies manifest files to suggest lower-quality segments, enabling user devices to adapt their content requests according to current network capacity, thus maintaining system stability while preserving acceptable delivery quality
Solution Approach 2:
The origin server changes content parameters (resolution, bitrate, format) in response to network overload conditions by modifying manifest files with alternative segment URLs of lower quality, allowing the system to operate within network capacity limits while maintaining functional content delivery
2Reliability
If user devices send retry requests for failed content segments, then content delivery reliability improves, but network overload worsens
Solution Approach 1:
The origin server provides feedback to user devices about network overload conditions through modified manifest files containing ETag headers and alternative segment URLs. User devices use this feedback to adjust their retry behavior, reducing unnecessary retransmissions that would exacerbate network congestion while maintaining essential error recovery
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of allowing full retry behavior, the system applies partial action by having user devices attempt retrieval of lower-quality alternative segments when overload is detected, rather than insisting on original high-quality segments, thus reducing overall traffic volume while maintaining partial content delivery reliability
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, apparatuses, and methods are described for controlling quality of service (QoS) provided to user devices by, for example, requesting a portion of the user devices to temporarily and selectively downgrade a quality of service. A downgrade message may be sent to the user devices to request a downgrade, and may provide information to allow the user devices to determine whether they will abide by the requested downgrade.