System and method for integrated load distribution and resource management on internet environment

A method for shaping demand for multi-media objects stored at one or more servers distributed throughout a network, each server device having a capacity for storing multi-media objects and, a streaming resource for delivering requested multi-media objects to clients, the method comprising:

• receiving requests for said multi-media objects from independent clients, each requested object having a unique identifier associated therewith;
• maintaining a mapping of object identifiers to locations of associated object replicas at said servers and utilizing said mapping to locate object replicas associated with the requested object identifier;
• maintaining a mapping of available distributed servers with an indicator indicating degree of willingness of a respective server to receive placement inquiries, and utilizing said mapping to determine a willingness of any such server to consider a placement inquiry associated with said request for said object replicas;
• and,
• generating one or more placement inquiries for said object to a willing server according to a predetermined policy, and forwarding a placement inquiry to said willing server.

Integrated system for real-time management of multimedia object resources in an Internet environment having servers for storing and providing streaming of multimedia objects to clients, the system comprising:

• means for monitoring demand for object resources and for predicting future demand for objects based on demand statistics and geographical location of said demand;
• means for ascertaining current willingness of server devices to store and allocate resources for streaming object resources in said Internet environment;
• means for shaping capacity of object resources in said Internet environment based on said demand statistics, said current available capacity and said geographical proximity of servers to demand locations, said capacity shaping means including means for replicating objects associated with said objects resources and temporarily placing said object replicas at one or more server devices having available capacity at predicted geographical demand locations;
• means for placing received request inputs for an object resource from a client and, generating and forwarding placement inquiries related to one or more received requests to a server device having said requested object resource at said geographical location;
• and,
• means for negotiating with a server device to enable placement of a particular request to that server device based upon predetermined criteria associated with streaming of said object resource from said server device to said client.

A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for managing a demand for multi-media objects stored at one or more servers distributed throughout a network, each server device having a capacity for storing multi-media objects and a streaming resource for delivering requested multi-media objects to clients, said method steps comprising:

• receiving requests for said multi-media objects from independent clients, each requested object having a unique identifier associated therewith;
• maintaining a mapping of object identifiers to locations of associated object replicas at said servers and utilizing said mapping to locate object replicas associated with the requested object identifier;
• maintaining a mapping of available distributed servers with an indicator indicating degree of willingness of a respective server to receive placement inquiries, and utilizing said mapping to determine a willingness of any such server to consider a placement inquiry associated with said request for said object replicas;
• and,
• generating one or more placement inquiries for said object to a willing server according to a predetermined policy, and forwarding a placement inquiry to said willing server.