Akamai Technologies, Inc.

Matthew J Stevens

Frederick R Shotton

Tong Chen

Stephen L Ludin

Andrew F Champagne

Mark A Roman

Jozef Hatala

Prasanna Laghate

Michael G Merideth

Nil Alexandrov

Brendan Coyle

Timothy Glynn

Xin Xu

Philip A Lisiecki

Vaishnav Janardhan

This patent document describes technology for providing real-time messaging and entity update services in a distributed proxy server network, such as a CDN. Uses include distributing real-time notifications about updates to data stored in and delivered by the network, with both high efficiency and locality of latency. The technology can be integrated into conventional caching proxy servers providing HTTP services, thereby leveraging their existing footprint in the Internet, their existing overlay network topologies and architectures, and their integration with existing traffic management components.

Real-time message delivery and update service in a proxy server network

A proxy server is augmented with the capability of taking transient possession of a received entity for purposes of serving consuming devices. This capability supplements destination forwarding and/or origin server transactions performed by the proxy server. This capability enables several entity transfer modes, including a rendezvous service, in which the proxy server can (if invoked by a client) fulfill a client's request with an entity that the proxy server receives from a producing device contemporaneous with (or shortly after) the request for that entity. It also enables server-to-server transfers with synchronous or asynchronous destination forwarding behavior. It also enables a mode in which clients can request different representations of entities, e.g., from either the near-channel (e.g., the version stored at the proxy server) or a far-channel (e.g., at origin server). The teachings hereof are compatible with, although not limited to, conventional HTTP messaging protocols, including GET, POST and PUT methods.

Proxy server entity transfer modes

An Internet infrastructure delivery platform operated by a provider enables HTTP-based service to identified third parties at large scale. The platform provides this service to one or more cloud providers. The approach enables the CDN platform provider (the first party) to service third party traffic on behalf of the cloud provider (the second party). In operation, an edge server handling mechanism leverages DNS to determine if a request with an unknown host header should be serviced. Before serving a response, and assuming the host header includes an unrecognized name, the edge server resolves the host header and obtains an intermediate response, typically a list of aliases (e.g., DNS CNAMEs). The edge server checks the returned CNAME list to determine how to respond to the original request. Using just a single edge configuration, the CDN service provider can support instant provisioning of a cloud provider's identified third party traffic.

Multi-domain configuration handling in an edge network server

Described herein are improved systems, methods, and devices for delivering and managing metadata in a distributed computing platform such as a content delivery network (CDN) so as to configure content servers to handle client requests. The teachings hereof provide, among other things, scalable and configurable solutions for delivering and managing metadata, preferably by leveraging dynamically obtained control information. For example, in one embodiment, a given content server may store metadata, e.g., in a configuration file, that references dynamic, late-bound control information for use in satisfying dependencies. This dynamic control information can be requested by the CDN content server, typically from a remote host, when needed to parse and execute the metadata.

Scalable content delivery network request handling mechanism to support a request processing layer

Scalable content delivery network request handling mechanism with support for dynamically-obtained content policies

Content delivery network request handling mechanism with cached control information

Scalable content delivery network request handling mechanism with usage-based billing

Scalable content delivery network request handling mechanism

Growing community of inventors

Lexington, MA, United States of America

Matthew J Stevens