Level 3 Communications, LLC

William Patrick Greer

Homer H Chen

Kevin Hobbs

Isaac W Foraker

Peter J Jones

Steven L Seed

Shane M Glynn

A method, system and computer program product for managed object replication and delivery redirects, directly or indirectly, a client's request for an object that is not available at a best or optimal handling edge server of a network to a parent server that has the requested object. So, where the requested object is not available at the handling edge server, the client's request is redirected directly to the parent server that can provide the requested object to the client or indirectly via one or more parent servers to a parent server that can provide the requested object to the client. The method, system and computer program product further intelligently replicates the object to the edge server if the object is popular enough. Likewise, an object is removed from an edge server when it is no longer popular. All redirection and replication operations are preferably transparent to the end-user and do not degrade the quality of service.

Managed object replication and delivery

A content delivery method directs a request by a client for an object to a first server in a content delivery network (CDN), regardless of whether the first server has the requested object. If the first server has the requested object, then it is served to the client from the first server; otherwise, the first server redirects the client request to a second server in the CDN to handle the request. The second server may be a peer server of the first server. The first and second servers may be edge servers in the CDN.

Server handoff in content delivery network

Growing community of inventors

Issaquah, WA, United States of America

William Patrick Greer