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Patent Issued for Unified Web Hosting and Content Distribution System and Method for Assuring Predetermined Performance Levels

2012 JUL 9 (VerticalNews) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Internet Business Newsweekly -- From Alexandria, Virginia, VerticalNews journalists report that a patent by the inventors Douglis, Frederick (Basking Ridge, NJ); Shur, David H. (Holmdel, NJ); Sommer, Joseph M. (Rutherford, NJ); Van Der Merwe, Jacobus E. (New Providence, NJ), filed on August 12, 2009, was cleared and issued on May 8, 2012.

The patent's assignee for patent number 8176172 is AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P. (Atlanta, GA).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "A service model, integrated system, and method enabling a service provider to deliver an integrated web hosting and content distribution service offering, which provides assured service levels, regardless of whether the customer's web site is served by the service provider's hosting center, the service provider's content distribution network (CDN), or by a third party CDN.

"Traditionally, content distribution network operators serve all-or-nothing for an area of a customer enterprise's web site; i.e., the enterprise operates its own web site for serving the content, or the enterprise outsources a name space (hostname) to a CDN operator to manage. There are currently some hybrid approaches offered by service providers. These include offering an enterprise needing web hosting a special price to include content distribution automatically as a part of a package, or offering the enterprise the ability to turn on a CDN as an 'insurance policy' to back up an overloaded server. For an enterprise or organization with unpredictable loads, this can lead to unpredictability in cost and performance.

"In current common business models, web hosting and content distribution networks (CDNs) are distinct. A web hosting service provider runs an 'origin server' that is the ultimate site where requests for web content from client machines are handled. As shown in FIG. 1, the web hosting service provider may itself have a cluster of servers front-ended by a content-aware switch Sw, and serves requests from client machines, without any inherent content distribution network.

"FIG. 2 shows a DNS-based CDN, and illustrates client machines C, local domain name server DNS.sub.1, caches 2, as part of the IP network. The CDN can cache web content closer to the client machines C of the end users of its customers, thus improving performance and scaling to a larger number of customers. CDNs usually charge a premium for this service, partly due to the added cost of the infrastructure (additional caches 2), and primarily because enterprises are willing to pay a premium for more predictable operational performance.

"There are two common models for using a CDN. Some content distribution providers require customers to add special coding to their HTML pages, to rewrite embedded links to retrieve objects exclusively from caches under its own operational control and ownership. On the other hand, other CDNs, including AT&T's CDN, for example, outsource a domain (for example images.company.com), to the CDN, making the CDN 'authoritative' for where that content is served. The CDN resolves that hostname to an IP address for a cache (or cluster of caches) it serves.

"An extension of the CDN model is something called 'Content Internetworking', a.k.a. 'Content Distribution Internetworking' (CDI), as in FIG. 3. With CDI, a CDN can have another entity, such as a second CDN B, or third CDN C, resolve the name to an IP address in its own service. In this example, (1) a user using a client machine C goes to a customer local DNS server DNS.sub.1, which (2) sends a message to a CDI DNS server. That CDI DNS server returns a response (3) to the customer's local DNS server DNS.sub.1, which may cause it to make a subsequent DNS request (3') of a DNS server at a second CDN (B in this case) getting a response (3''). The customer's local DNS.sub.1 (4) returns an IP address to the client machine C, which retrieves the data from either CDN B (5,6) or CDN A (5', 6')."

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, VerticalNews correspondents also obtained the inventors' summary information for this patent: "The object of the present invention is to unify hosting and CDNs with respect to cost, performance, reliability, and other metrics commonly used to evaluate a hosting service or CDN.

"To achieve the above object, according to a first aspect of the present invention, a system is provided for delivering an integrated web hosting and content distribution affording predetermined service performance levels. The system includes a first web hosting server for a web site; at least one content distribution network; a redirection means, the redirection means for receiving DNS requests from access devices through a local DNS; and monitoring means for monitoring operational performance parameters of the first web host and the at least one content distribution network, the redirection means and the monitoring means being under the operation control of a primary service provider. Based on signals from the monitoring means, the redirection means of the primary service provider returns a record to the local DNS indicating whether or not the first web hosting server is capable of meeting a predetermined operational performance threshold. The redirection means sends the local DNS a record including an IP address of the first web hosting server when a performance value is below a predetermined operational performance threshold, whereas the redirection means sends the local DNS a different record causing the local DNS to make a subsequent DNS request to a DNS of the at least one content distribution network when the performance value is equal to or above the predetermined operational performance threshold.

"According to a second aspect of the present invention, the first web hosting server and one of the at least one content distribution networks are operated under the control of the primary service provider.

"According to a third aspect of the present invention the first web hosting server and the at least one content distribution networks are monitored by, but not operated by, the primary service provider.

"According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the monitoring means of the primary service provider receives detailed capacity and health statistics of any of the at least one CDN under the operational control of the primary service provider, and receives aggregate capacity and health statistics from others of the at least one CDN not under the operational control of the primary service provider.

"According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, a method is provided for delivering an integrated web hosting and content distribution service which affords predetermined operational performance levels. The method includes the steps of providing a first web hosting server for a web site, at least one content distribution network, redirection means, and monitoring means, wherein the redirection means and the monitoring means are under operation control of a primary service provider; receiving a DNS requests from access devices through a local DNS; and monitoring operational performance parameters of a first web host and at least one content distribution network. Then, based on signals from the monitoring means, the redirection means of the primary service provider returns a record to the local DNS indicating whether or not the first web hosting server is capable of meeting a predetermined operational performance threshold. The record sent by the redirection means includes an IP address of the first web hosting server when a performance value is below a predetermined operational performance threshold, whereas the redirection means sends the local DNS a different record causing the local DNS to make a subsequent DNS request to a DNS of the at least one content distribution network when the performance value is equal to or above the predetermined operational performance threshold.

"As a result of the present invention, organizations and enterprises are provided an integrated web hosting and content distribution service offering, which provides assured service levels, regardless of whether the customer's web site is served by the service provider's hosting center, the service provider's content distribution network (CDN), or by a third party CDN.

"Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description."

For additional information on this patent, see: Douglis, Frederick; Shur, David H.; Sommer, Joseph M.; Van Der Merwe, Jacobus E.. Unified Web Hosting and Content Distribution System and Method for Assuring Predetermined Performance Levels. U.S. Patent Number 8176172, filed August 12, 2009, and issued May 8, 2012. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=19&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=942&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=20120508.PD.&OS=ISD/20120508&RS=ISD/20120508

Keywords for this news article include: Internet, AT&T Intellectual Property II L.P..