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EP-3909004-B1 - CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK SYSTEM AND METHOD

EP3909004B1EP 3909004 B1EP3909004 B1EP 3909004B1EP-3909004-B1

Inventors

  • PARANJPE, ROHIT
  • BARARIA, RIPUNJAY
  • GORADIA, DEVANG

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20190319

Claims (15)

  1. A data delivery system (300), comprising: a multi-tiered content delivery network having an origin server (402) at a first tier, one or more mid servers (402) at a second tier connected to the origin server (402) and a plurality of edge servers (404, 406) at a third tier connected to one or more mid servers (402) and a plurality of computing devices (302) that make requests to the content delivery network using a cellular data connection and a WiFi connection; wherein each edge server (404, 406) has a processor and memory and is intermittently connected to the multi-tiered content delivery network and a particular edge server (404, 406) is physically located in a place of interest, which is characterized by a specific user demographics and service access patterns, so that the processor of the particular edge server (404, 406) caches content based on the user demographics and service access patterns associated with the place of interest, operates with and without connectivity to the multi-tiered content delivery network and performs machine learning to generate a list of content based on user demographics and service access patterns associated with the place of interest; and wherein each edge server (404, 406) uses a hybrid push and pull content model in which each edge server (404, 406) pulls content from the content delivery network for the place of interest and pushes the content, when requested by each computing device (302), to that computing device with and without access to the Internet.
  2. The system (300) of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the plurality of edge servers (404, 406) is the static edge server that has a Wi-Fi interface and a wired, high speed connection to the one or more mid servers (402) and/or wherein at least one of the plurality of edge servers is the mobile edge server that connects to one of a static edge server over a Wi-Fi SSID for high speed communications and also connects to the multi-tiered content delivery network infrastructure over a cellular data network.
  3. The system (300) of claim 2, wherein each edge server (404, 406) has an attached WiFi circuit covering the place of interest configured to deliver the content hosted by the edge server to a user at the place of interest over a Local Area Network (LAN) and/or wherein each edge server (404, 406) further performs one or more of the following processes: generating security keys, generating ad tags and generating API responses and/or wherein each edge server (404, 406) is always one hop away from the computing device thereby providing a faster data delivery and facilitating better user experience.
  4. The system (300) of claim 1, wherein the multi-tiered content delivery network uses a dedicated last mile that is not shared with other services running on the Internet, thereby providing a faster data delivery and facilitating better user experience and/or wherein each edge server (404, 406) enables a user that doesn't have access to the internet last mile (one of cellular data or Wi-Fi) to experience the full functionality of a digital service when the edge server (404, 406) is connected to the multi-tiered content delivery network infrastructure and/or wherein each edge server (404, 406) enables a user that doesn't have access to the internet last mile (one of cellular data or Wi-Fi) to experience a digital service, although with certain limited functionality when the edge server (404, 406) is not connected to the multi-tiered content delivery network infrastructure.
  5. The system (300) of claim 1, wherein each chunk of data transferred from each edge server (404, 406) does not add load on the Internet Infrastructure or the Internet last mile, thereby freeing up bandwidth on the existing internet infrastructure.
  6. A method for accessing digital data, comprising: providing a multi-tiered content delivery network having an origin server (402) at a first tier, one or more mid servers (402) at a second tier connected to the origin server (402) and a plurality of edge servers (404, 406) at a third tier connected to the one or more mid servers (402) and a plurality of computing devices (302) that make requests to the content delivery network using a cellular data connection and a WiFi connection wherein each edge server (404, 406) is intermittently connected to the multi-tiered content delivery network and a particular edge server (404, 406) is physically located in a place of interest, which is characterized by a specific user demographics and service access patterns, so that the processor of the particular edge server (404, 406) caches content based on user demographics and service access patterns associated with the place of interest; obtaining, by each edge server (404, 406), a plurality of pieces of content from the higher level tiers of the multi-tiered content delivery network for the place of interest associated with each edge server (404, 406); performing a hybrid push and pull content delivery model in which each edge server (404, 406) pulls content from the content delivery network for the place of interest and pushes the content with and without connectivity to the multi-tiered content delivery network, when requested by each computing device (302), to that computing device with and without access to the Internet; and performing, at each edge server (404, 406), machine learning to generate a list of content based on user demographics and service access patterns associated with the place of interest and caching, at each server, the content in the generated list of content by pulling the pieces of content on the generated content list from the content delivery network for the place of interest.
  7. The method of claim 6, wherein the plurality of edge servers (404, 406) may further comprise a static edge server that has a Wi-Fi interface and a wired, high speed connection to the one or more mid servers.
  8. The method of claim 7, wherein the plurality of edge servers (404, 406) may further comprise a mobile edge server that connects to a static edge server over a Wi-Fi SSID for high speed communications and also connects to the multi-tiered content delivery network infrastructure over a cellular data network or other wireless means.
  9. The method of claim 8 further comprising covering, by each edge server (404, 406) having an attached WiFi circuit, the place of interest configured to deliver the content hosted by the edge server to a user at the place of interest over a Local Area Network (LAN).
  10. The method of claim 9, wherein each edge server (404, 406) further performs one of more of the following processes: generating security keys, generating ad tags and generating API responses.
  11. The method of claim 10, wherein each edge server (404, 406) is always one hop away from the computing device thereby providing a faster data delivery and facilitating better user experience.
  12. The method of claim 11, wherein the multi-tiered content delivery network uses a dedicated last mile that is not shared with other services running on the Internet, thereby providing a faster data delivery and facilitating better user experience.
  13. The method of claim 12, wherein each edge server (404, 406) enables a user that doesn't have access to the internet last mile (one of cellular data or Wi-Fi) to experience the full functionality of a digital service when the edge server (404, 406) is connected to the multi-tiered content delivery network infrastructure.
  14. The method of claim 13, wherein each edge server (404, 406) enables a user that doesn't have access to the internet last mile (one of cellular data or Wi-Fi) to experience a digital service, although with certain limited functionality when the edge server (404, 406) is not connected to the multi-tiered content delivery network infrastructure.
  15. The method of claim 14, wherein each chunk of data transferred from each edge server (404, 406) does not add load on the Internet Infrastructure or the Internet last mile, thereby freeing up bandwidth on the existing internet infrastructure.

Description

Field The disclosure relates generally to a system and method for delivering data and an architecture for delivering the data over a last mile, required for a Digital Service (Mobile App / Website / Game / Software Application) to work. Background The internet and the associated networks used by a consumer / consumer device to access a digital service as shown in Figure 1 are well known. The internet allows different pieces of content/data required for a digital service to work to be delivered to a device, using a last mile network, like the smartphone shown in Figure 1. The Internet shown in Figure 1 is the combination of all physical units distributed across the globe that house all the information in the world. The internet data center is a series of distributed physical units that house all the networking and computing equipment, including redundant and backup components, infrastructure for power supply, data communications connections, environmental controls and various security devices. The CDN infrastructure is a geographically distributed network of servers that are housed in the Internet data center that serve most of the internet content today, especially web objects (text, graphics, scripts), downloadable objects (media files, software, documents), applications, live streaming media, on-demand streaming media and social media whose architecture is well known and whose operation is also known. The Internet, along with the Internet Data Center and the CDN Infrastructure is together termed as the Internet Infrastructure. A Digital Service Provider includes all individuals / companies / entities that use the Internet infrastructure to provide a service to consumers. The consumer Platform is/are mobile apps / websites / any interface through which a user accesses the service of a Digital Service Provider. The telecom Infra is an infrastructure setup by telecom companies that uses licensed wireless frequencies for access to the internet (2G / 3G / 4G / LTE - collectively, cellular data connections) and the Wi-Fi Infra is the infrastructure setup by Internet service providers to provide broadband / leased line connectivity to access internet or to which Access point/s can be attached to access internet wirelessly using unlicensed frequency. Using the conventional system shown in Figure 1, the Service (Mobile App) shown in Figure 1 works in the following manner. All information made available by a Digital Service Provider is stored / served either through server/s hosted by the Digital Service Provider or through a CDN. Based on data access patterns (what data is being consumed where), the CDN infrastructure caches certain data (a subset of all information) across multiple servers distributed across geographies. The CDN Edge servers (EDGE1, ..., EDGEn in Figure 1) are distributed globally and placed inside third party Internet Data Centers distributed globally and data centers operated by Internet Service Providers and Telecom service providers. When a consumer needs to access a Service, the Service needs to access the server/s hosted by the Digital Service Provider and the CDN over a "last mile" which is the data connection between the consumer (the smartphone device for example in Figure 1) and the Internet Infrastructure (either via an Internet Service Provider, a Telcom Service Provider or any other form of internet connectivity option). The ability of the consumer to access the Service is dependent on the availability of the last mile to the consumer and the consumer experience of the Service is dependent on the reliability and the throughput available on the last mile. More importantly, as the number of users and the data consumption per user increases, the load on the existing Internet Infrastructure, increases exponentially, affecting the experience of the user in densely concentrated areas. Using a current convention system, accessing the service occurs in the following manner. When a user opens a digital service on a device (like a smartphone), the digital service tries to access the Internet Infrastructure using last mile connectivity available to the device at that moment. The operating system (OS) of the smartphone of the consumer (see Figure 1) detects the availability of connectivity over a cellular data connection (such as 4G/LTE as shown in Figure 1) or Wi-Fi. If connectivity is available using only one connection, the OS uses the available connectivity route. If both connectivity options are available, the OS detects which connection offers more stable and faster bandwidth availability and uses that connection to transact data packets, with priority assigned to Wi-Fi. If the above scenario changes at any point, the OS automatically shifts between the two, unless the user manually connects or disconnects from either of the two available options. The user is able to access the service as long as one out of the two connections are available. The user's experience of using the service is de