Scalability and Redundancy Enhancements for Content Streaming

A content streaming system comprising:

• a first set of servers (i) for receiving a plurality of content provider content streams and (ii) for passing messages to identify the received content streams;
• a second set of servers, each server (i) for identifying which server of the first set of servers has available for streaming a requested content stream based on the messages, (ii) for streaming the requested content stream from the identified server when the requested content stream is not cached at the server, and (iii) for streaming the requested content stream from cache when the requested content stream is cached at the server;
• and
• a third set of servers, each server (i) for receiving a content stream request from at least one content consumer, (ii) for streaming the requested content stream to the content consumer from cache when said content stream is cached at the server, and (iii) for streaming the requested content stream to the content consumer from a server of the second set of servers that is selected based on selection criteria when the requested content stream is not cached at the server.

For a content streaming system comprising a plurality of servers for streaming content to a plurality of content consumers, a method of operation that allows for zero configuration scaling of the content streaming system, the method comprising:

• providing a first set of servers to which content providers supply content for streaming to the content consumers through a second set of servers of the content streaming system;
• passing a set of messages from the first set of servers to the second set of servers to identify which content stream is available for streaming at which server of the first set of servers;
• based on the set of messages, identifying a server from the first set of servers that has a particular content stream that a content consumer requests at a particular server of the second set of servers;
• and
• requesting the identified server to stream the particular content stream to the particular server for redistribution to the content consumer.