Akamai Technologies, Inc.

Michael M Afergan

F Thomson Leighton

Andrew F Champagne

Daniel Stodolsky

Satish Balusu Rao

Gregory Fletcher

Brian J Mancuso

Duke P Hong

Timothy P Johnson

Ken G Iwamoto

Jay Parikh

Charisma J LaFleur

Ravi Sundaram

Hariharan Rahul

Andrew B Ellis

Charisma Schlossberg

Hariharan S Rahul

A content delivery network (CDN) typically includes a mapping system for directing requests to CDN servers. One or more peer machines become associated with the CDN, and the CDN mapping system is then used to enable a given peer to locate another peer in the P2P network, and/or a CDN server. Using this hybrid approach, CDN customer content may be delivered from the CDN edge network, from the P2P network, or from both networks. In one embodiment, customer content is uploaded to the CDN and stored in the edge network, or in a storage network associated therewith. The CDN edge network is then used to prime the P2P network, which may be used to take over some of the content delivery requirements for the customer content. The decision of whether to use edge network or peer network resources for delivery may be based on load and traffic conditions.

Hybrid content delivery network (CDN) and peer-to-peer (P2P) network

A content delivery network (CDN) edge server is provisioned to provide last mile acceleration of content to requesting end users. The CDN edge server fetches, compresses and caches content obtained from a content provider origin server, and serves that content in compressed form in response to receipt of an end user request for that content. It also provides 'on-the-fly' compression of otherwise uncompressed content as such content is retrieved from cache and is delivered in response to receipt of an end user request for such content. A preferred compression routine is gzip, as most end user browsers support the capability to decompress files that are received in this format. The compression functionality preferably is enabled on the edge server using customer-specific metadata tags.

Apparatus and method for caching of compressed content in a content delivery network

A content delivery network (CDN) service provider extends a content delivery network to gather information on atomically identifiable web clients (called 'user agents') as such computer-implemented entities interact with the CDN across different domains being managed by the CDN service provider. The data system tracks user agents, preferably via cookies, although one or more passive techniques may be used. A user agent may be a cookie-able device having a cookie store. As the user agent navigates across sites, a CDN-specific unique identifier used by the system to correlate user agents is generated. Preferably, the unique identifier is stored as an encrypted cookie. The unique identifier represents one user agent (and, thus, one cookie-able device's store). The system tracks user agent behavior on and across customer sites that are served by the CDN, and these behaviors are classified into identifiable 'segments' that may be used to create a profile.

Method of data collection among participating content providers in a distributed network

The present invention leverages an existing content delivery network infrastructure to provide a system that enhances performance for any application that uses the Internet Protocol (IP) as its underlying transport mechanism. An overlay network comprises a set of edge nodes, intermediate nodes, and gateway nodes. This network provides optimized routing of IP packets. Internet application users can use the overlay to obtain improved performance during normal network conditions, to obtain or maintain good performance where normal default BGP routing would otherwise force the user over congested or poorly performing paths, or to enable the user to maintain communications to a target server application even during network outages.

Reliable, high-throughput, high-performance transport and routing mechanism for arbitrary data flows

A content delivery network (CDN) service provider extends a content delivery network to gather information on atomically identifiable web clients (called 'user agents') as such computer-implemented entities interact with the CDN across different domains being managed by the CDN service provider. In one embodiment, a set of machines, processes, programs, and data comprise a data system. The data system tracks user agents, preferably via cookies, although one or more passive techniques may be used. A user agent may be a cookie-able device having a cookie store. As the user agent navigates across sites, a CDN-specific unique identifier used by the system to correlate user agents is generated. Preferably, the unique identifier is stored as an encrypted cookie. The unique identifier represents one user agent (and, thus, one cookie-able device's store). The system tracks user agent behavior on and across customer sites that are served by the CDN, and these behaviors are classified into identifiable 'segments' that may be used to create a profile. CDN customers use the data system to obtain information that characterizes the user agent.

Method and system for mitigating automated agents operating across a distributed network

Method for caching and delivery of compressed content in a content delivery network

The present invention addresses the known vulnerabilities of Web site infrastructure by making an origin server substantially inaccessible via Internet Protocol traffic. In particular, according to a preferred embodiment, the origin server is 'shielded' from the publicly-routable IP address space. Preferably, only given machines (acting as clients) can access the origin server, and then only under restricted, secure circumstances. In a preferred embodiment, these clients are the servers located in a 'parent' region of a content delivery network (CDN) tiered distribution hierarchy. The invention implements an origin server shield that protects a site against security breaches and the high cost of Web site downtime by ensuring that the only traffic sent to an enterprise's origin infrastructure preferably originates from CDN servers. The inventive &#x201c;shielding&#x201d; technique protects a site's Web servers (as well as backend infrastructure, such as application servers, databases, and mail servers) from unauthorized intrusion&#x2014;improving site uptime and in the process, customer loyalty.

Method and system for protecting web sites from public internet threats

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Michael M Afergan