KR101262622B1 - System and method for controlling server usage in streaming service based on peer to peer - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed are a system and method for controlling server usage in a P2P based streaming service. In a P2P based streaming service, a system for adjusting server usage is based on a ratio of the constant to the current number of concurrent users, which is determined using a current number of concurrent users providing a current number of concurrent users and an inflow rate of concurrent users. It includes a server usage control unit for adjusting the server usage.

Description

System and method for controlling server usage in P2 based streaming service {SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING SERVER USAGE IN STREAMING SERVICE BASED ON PEER TO PEER}

Embodiments of the present invention relate to a system and method for controlling server usage in a P2P based streaming service.

Peer to Peer Service (P2P) is a service that receives information directly from all personal computers connected to the Internet, unlike the conventional method of searching for information on the Internet through a search engine.

In addition, 'streaming' generally refers to a technology of receiving and playing a file in real time through a network, and the most commonly used technique is progressive streaming.

Using this streaming technology for P2P technology can reduce the load on the server and service side, resulting in cost savings. To implement this, a client using P2P based streaming service communicates with P2P based streaming server by including the necessary functions to use P2P based streaming service in a dedicated player that plays contents such as multimedia files. To realize streaming services. More specifically, the server provides the user with a list of contents that can be provided through a web page, and the client clicks on the content to be serviced from the list to select it. Then, when the content to be serviced is selected, a dedicated player installed in the client is executed to play the selected content. At this time, the dedicated player receives and plays the selected content from a peer different from the server using P2P technology.

When the user client who wants to use the P2P based streaming service is connected to the server and receives content from the user client, the user client searches for a peer that has the selected content and connects the content to the user client. That is, the dedicated player of the user client receives and plays the file pieces of the selected content from the server or other peers having the content.

At this time, in the P2P-based streaming service according to the prior art, the server usage is determined in advance by calculating the maximum share rate according to the expected number of concurrent users. However, server usage is very high in the early stages compared to the peak number of concurrent users. At this time, since the network cost is determined according to the peak of the server usage, there is a problem that the service provider has to pay a large network cost by the initial high server usage. In addition, there is a problem that it is difficult to predict the number of concurrent users in advance.

Provided herein are systems and methods that can effectively determine server usage.

Provided are a system and method for adaptively adjusting server usage according to the inflow rate of concurrent users and the current number of concurrent users.

A system and method are provided that can maintain low server traffic at all times, regardless of the number of concurrent users, by adjusting server usage through a ratio of current concurrent connections to a constant determined based on the inflow rate of concurrent users.

P2P-based, including a server usage control unit for adjusting the server usage based on the ratio of the current number of concurrent users determined by using the current number of concurrent users providing the current number of concurrent users, and the inflow rate of the concurrent users A system for controlling server usage in a streaming service is provided.

A packetizing server that receives data streams from the encoder and indexes them into pieces, maintains a list of delivery servers and clients that receive pieces from the packetizing server and sends the pieces to the client according to the client's request. Provided is a server usage control system including an index server, wherein the server usage is adjusted according to a ratio of the constant number of concurrent users, which is determined using the inflow rate of concurrent users.

Adjusting server usage in a P2P-based streaming service, comprising providing a current number of concurrent users and adjusting server usage based on a ratio of the current concurrent number of constants determined using the inflow rate of concurrent users. A method is provided.

Maintaining a list of clients, providing a search service, receiving a data stream from an encoder and indexing the piece as a piece, and sending the piece to the client as requested by the client, A server usage adjustment method is provided in which server usage is adjusted according to the ratio of the determined constant to the number of concurrent users.

Server usage can be adjusted adaptively according to the inflow rate of concurrent users and the current number of concurrent users.

By determining server usage through a ratio of the constant number of concurrent users, based on the inflow rate of concurrent users, it is possible to maintain low server traffic at all times regardless of the number of concurrent users.

1 is a diagram illustrating a logical configuration of a system for providing a P2P based streaming service according to an embodiment of the present invention.
2 is a diagram illustrating a physical configuration of a system for providing a P2P based streaming service according to an embodiment of the present invention.
3 is a diagram for describing the duplication of a packetizing server according to one embodiment of the present invention.
4 is a diagram for explaining redundancy of a delivery server in an embodiment of the present invention.
5 is a diagram for describing redundancy of an index server according to an embodiment of the present invention.
6 illustrates a peer management system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a diagram for describing a buffer available in a peer according to one embodiment of the present invention. FIG.
8 is a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling server usage in a P2P based streaming service according to an embodiment of the present invention.
9 is a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling server usage in a P2P based streaming service according to an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a diagram illustrating a logical configuration of a system for providing a P2P based streaming service according to an embodiment of the present invention. 1 shows a media source 110, a packetizing server 120, a delivery server group 130, a client 140, and a plurality of peers 150.

Here, the media source 110 may mean an encoder that provides a stream. The packetizing server 120 may receive the data stream from this media source 110 and index it into pieces. As a method of indexing a piece to provide a stream through a P2P service, one of various known methods may be used. One packetizing server 120 may exist for each media source 110. For example, if four games are played during a professional baseball relay, and four media sources 110 exist for four matches, four packetizing servers 120 may also be used. The packetizing server 120 will be described in more detail later with reference to FIG. 3.

The delivery server group 130 may be configured with at least one delivery server 131. In this case, the number of delivery servers 131 operating in the delivery server group 130 may be adjusted according to the number of simultaneous users. The delivery server 131 may receive the indexed piece from the packetizing server 120 and buffer it. In this case, the piece may be transmitted to the client 140 at the request of the client 140.

Here, the client 140 may mean a user terminal such as a PC, and may include a peer 141 and a player 142 as shown in FIG. 1. Peer 141 may receive a piece from at least one of delivery server 131 and a plurality of peers 150 and transmit a data stream to player 142. For example, the peer 141 may be a program installed and operated in the client 140. The plurality of peers 150 may also be installed and operated in a plurality of clients, respectively.

That is, the data stream converted from the packetizing server 120 to the piece may be transmitted to at least some of the entire clients through the delivery server group 130, and the delivery server 131 may be viewed from one client 140. By receiving pieces from and other clients and transmitting the data stream to the player 142, the user is provided with a P2P based streaming service.

In this case, the server usage adjustment system according to an embodiment of the present invention may mean the system itself described with reference to FIG. 1, or may be included in or associated with the system described with reference to FIG. 1 as necessary. The server usage control system adaptively adjusts the server usage in consideration of the number of concurrent users, so that low server traffic is always maintained regardless of the number of concurrent users. In this case, the server usage may be adjusted based on the ratio of the constant number of concurrent users determined by using the inflow rate of concurrent users. For example, server usage may be calculated as in Equation 1 below.

Here, 'c' may be a constant determined using the inflow rate of simultaneous accessors, and 'n' may mean a current concurrent accessor number, respectively. At this time, 'c' is a constant that can be determined by the administrator or the system through empirical test. Basically, the higher the inflow rate of concurrent users can be determined as a relatively large value, and the lower the inflow rate can be determined as a relatively small value. have. Equation 1 may indicate that 'n' users are covered by traffic for 'c' persons. For example, if 'c' is 6, it may mean that traffic to be provided to six people is intended to cover all 'n' people (current concurrent users).

In other words, even if the inflow rate of concurrent users increases, the number of concurrent users increases, but the constant 'c' is fixed, whereas 'n' increases, so server usage decreases. Therefore, low server usage can be maintained at all times regardless of the number of concurrent users.

To this end, the server usage control system is based on the ratio of the current number of concurrent users determined by using the current number of concurrent users providing unit (not shown) that provides the current number of concurrent users and the inflow rate of the concurrent users of the server It may include a server usage controller (not shown) for adjusting the usage.

2 is a diagram illustrating a physical configuration of a system for providing a P2P-based streaming service in an embodiment of the present invention. 2 is a diagram illustrating an external IDC 210 that provides equipment for a P2P based streaming service, an encoder company 220 that provides a data stream, and an external IDC 210 that manages a process of providing stream data to a client 240. An internal IDC 230 is shown.

The external IDC 210 may include a packetizing server 211, a main netchecker 213, a sub netchecker 214, a delivery server 212 and an index server 215, and a plurality of switches 216. have. Here, each of the packetizing server 211, the delivery server 212, the main net checker 213, the sub net checker 214 and the index server 215 may be composed of a plurality of servers instead of one server. Each of the plurality of switches 216 may be used to transmit data to or receive data from the server. As each of the plurality of switches 216, for example, an L4 switch may be used.

The packetizing server 211 receives a data stream from the media encoder 221 of the encoder company 220 and processes the received data stream into data for use in the system. That is, the packetizing server 211 may convert the data stream into a plurality of pieces. As described above, one packetizing server 211 may be executed for each media encoder 221.

The delivery server 212 transfers the piece received from the packetizing server 211 to the client 240 at the request of the client 240. In addition, the index server 215 maintains a list of clients 240 and provides a search service. Here, the main net checker 213 and the sub net checker 214 may refer to a relay server for relaying connections between peers.

Table 1 below shows the number of servers required when the number of concurrent users is 150,000, the content bit rate is 500kbps, and the sharing rate is 80%.

The LMS 231 included in the internal IDC 230 may refer to a peer management system. The LMS 231 manages the packetizing server 211, the delivery server 212, and the index server 215. The LMS 231 is an upload download state, traffic, number of queries, resources (CPU, memory), and sharing of the server. Rate, etc. can be monitored. In addition, the LMS 231 may generate and store statistical data on the number of concurrent users, the number of unique visitors, the share rate, the user speed distribution, the average viewing time, and the number of viewing channels in the DB 232. That is, the DB 232 may refer to a server that stores statistical data.

In this case, as described above, the system according to an embodiment of the present invention may adaptively adjust the server usage in consideration of the number of concurrent users, so that low server traffic is always maintained regardless of the number of concurrent users. In this case, the server usage may be adjusted based on the ratio of the constant number of concurrent users determined by using the inflow rate of concurrent users. For example, the server usage may be calculated as in Equation 1 above, and the server usage may refer to traffic of the delivery server 212 described with reference to FIG. 2. In addition, the server usage adjustment system described with reference to FIG. 1 may mean the system described with reference to FIG. 2 or may be included in the LMS 231 described above.

3 is a diagram for describing the duplication of a packetizing server according to one embodiment of the present invention. 3 illustrates that four packetizing servers can operate in the main packetizing server group 350 when data streams are provided through four encoders 310 to 340. That is, 'PS-1', 'PS-2', 'PS-3' and 'PS-4' may refer to the above four packetizing servers.

In this case, the four packetizing servers may convert the data streams received from the four encoders 310 to 340 into pieces, which are data in a form that can be used in P2P, and transmit the converted data to all delivery servers. In this case, four packetizing servers and all delivery servers may transmit and receive data using the switch 370.

The packetizing server does not use much resources such as CPU or traffic. For example, if 20 delivery servers (based on 150,000 concurrent users) are connected, only 20Mbps traffic is used for 1Mbps content.

In addition, since different data streams may be transmitted from four encoders 310 to 340 for each packetizing server, as shown in FIG. 3, the piece may have a primary packetizing server group 350 and secondary packetizing. It should be created only in one server group of the server group 360. Accordingly, the primary packetizing server group 350 and the secondary packetizing server group 360 may operate in an active / standby mode. The secondary packetizing server group 360 may be used to respond to the failure of the primary packetizing server group 350.

4 is a diagram for describing redundancy of a delivery server according to one embodiment of the present invention. Pieces that are data converted in the packetizing server group 410 are transmitted to the delivery server group 420. In this case, 'DS-n' refers to the 'n' delivery server and may mean that 'n' delivery servers exist in the delivery server group 420.

Each delivery server receives the pieces from the packetizing server, buffers a certain number of pieces, and transmits the pieces to the peers at the request of peers. At this time, the delivery servers of the delivery server group 420 may also be bound to the switch 430, and traffic may be controlled by increasing the delivery server according to the increase in the number of concurrent users.

5 is a diagram for describing redundancy of an index server according to an embodiment of the present invention. The index server group 510 may include a plurality of index servers, and 'IS-n' means 'n' index servers, and 'n' index servers exist in the index server group 520. It may mean.

In this case, each of the plurality of index servers manages peers as clients. More specifically, it manages peers installed on clients and delivers search results based on peer requests. In addition, the index server can perform message delivery and maintain a persistent connection with the peer. Each of these index servers may be bound to the switch 520 and increase the index server according to the number of concurrent users.

6 illustrates a peer management system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The LMS 610 illustrated in FIG. 6 may refer to a peer management system, the IS 620 may refer to an index server, the PS 630 may refer to a packetizing server, and the DS 640 may refer to a delivery server. In this case, the peer management system may perform management, distribution, update, and monitoring functions for the index server, the packetizing server, and the delivery server, and perform statistics collection and analysis function for the peer (peer). For example, the peer management system may monitor the state of the above-described servers, such as CPU or memory usage or traffic, and provide an event notification function (SMS, e-mail) for a failure situation.

7 is a diagram for explaining a buffer available in a peer according to an embodiment of the present invention. A peer is software that can be installed and operated on a client as described above to determine which piece to receive from where. Table 2 below shows how to select a piece at a peer and the source that can be received.

In Table 2, 'Rarest First' means a piece selection method for receiving the rarest pieces first on the network, and 'Progressive' means a piece selection method for receiving pieces sequentially from the front. In this case, the piece may be received through a delivery server or received from another peer.

At this time, the peer may use a buffer to store the received piece in order to facilitate playback and increase sharing efficiency. FIG. 7 shows the first buffer 710 to the third buffer 730. FIG.

First, the first buffer 710 may be divided into a first range 711 for storing a piece received through 'Progressive' and a second range 712 for storing a piece received through 'Rarest First'. have. At the same time, the first buffer 710 may be divided into a third range 713 for storing a piece received via the delivery server and a fourth range 714 for storing a piece received via another peer.

The second buffer 720 actually shows regions of the divided buffer. That is, the second buffer 720 includes a first region 721 for storing pieces received in a 'progressive' manner via a delivery server, a second region 721 for storing pieces received in a 'progressive' manner via another peer 722) and a third area 723 for storing pieces received as 'Rarest First' through other peers.

The third buffer 730 indicates that the divided regions may have different sizes. That is, the third buffer 730 represents an example in which the region A 731, the region B 732, and the region C 733 have different size ratios. For example, the size ratio of the region A 731, the region B 732, and the region C 733 may have a ratio of 1: 4: 16. This ratio can be adjusted as needed. In addition, a portion of the piece may be received from the delivery server and stored in the area B 732 and the area C 733 as needed.

8 is a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling server usage in a P2P based streaming service according to an embodiment of the present invention. The method for adjusting server usage according to the present embodiment may be performed through the server usage adjusting system described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

In step 810, the server usage adjustment system provides the current number of concurrent users. As described above, the live cast management system manages the number of concurrent users, and the server usage adjustment system may receive and provide the number of concurrent users managed by the live cast management system.

In step 820, the server usage control system adjusts the server usage based on the ratio of the constant number of concurrent users determined by using the inflow rate of the concurrent users. In this case, the constant determined using the inflow rate of the simultaneous accessor may be determined as a relatively large value as the inflow rate is high, and a relatively small value as the inflow rate is low.

In addition, the number of delivery servers that transmit pieces of the data stream to the client may be determined based on server usage. In this case, the client includes a buffer for temporarily storing the piece, and the buffer includes a first area for progressively storing the piece received through the delivery server, progressive using a piece selection method for sequentially receiving the piece. A second area for storing pieces received through another client, and a Rare first, which is a piece selection method for first receiving the rarest piece on the network. It may include a third area for storing the piece.

9 is a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling server usage in a P2P based streaming service according to an embodiment of the present invention. The method for adjusting server usage according to the present embodiment may be performed through the server usage adjusting system described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

The server usage control system maintains a list of clients at step 910, provides a search service, and receives a data stream from an encoder at 920 and indexes the pieces. In addition, the server usage control system transmits the piece to the client according to the client's request in step 930, and at step 940, at least one of the number of concurrent users, share rate, user speed distribution, average viewing time and viewing channel number Generates information about At this time, the server usage may be adjusted according to the ratio of the constant number of concurrent users determined by using the inflow rate of the concurrent users. In this case, the constant may be determined as a relatively large value as the inflow rate is high, and a relatively small value as the inflow rate is low.

In addition, the number of delivery servers that transmit pieces of the data stream to the client may be determined based on server usage. At this time, the client includes a buffer for temporarily storing the piece, the buffer using the first area, progressive for storing the piece received through the delivery server using progressive, a piece selection method for sequentially receiving the piece Received through other clients using a second area for storing pieces received through other clients and a rare first, a piece selection method for first receiving the rarest pieces on the network It may include a third area for storing the.

As such, by using the system and the method according to the embodiments of the present invention, it is possible to adaptively adjust the server usage according to the inflow rate of the concurrent users and the current number of concurrent users, and to determine a constant determined based on the inflow rate of the concurrent users. By determining server usage based on the current number of concurrent users, you can always maintain low server traffic regardless of the number of concurrent users.

Methods according to an embodiment of the present invention may be implemented in the form of program instructions that can be executed by various computer means and recorded in a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium may include program instructions, data files, data structures, etc. alone or in combination. The program instructions recorded on the medium may be those specially designed and constructed for the present invention or may be available to those skilled in the art of computer software. In addition, the above-described file system can be recorded in a computer-readable recording medium.

As described above, the present invention has been described by way of limited embodiments and drawings, but the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains various modifications and variations from such descriptions. This is possible.

Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited to the described embodiments, but should be determined by the equivalents of the claims, as well as the claims.

120: packetizing server
130: delivery server group
131: delivery server
140: client
141: peer
142: player
150: multiple peers

Claims (5)

In the system to control the traffic usage of the server,
A current simultaneous access number providing unit providing a current concurrent access number; And
A server usage controller that adjusts the traffic usage of the server to decrease as the number of concurrent users increases based on a ratio of the constant to the current concurrent users, which is determined using the number of concurrent users.
Including,
The peak value of P2P-based peer-to-server traffic is below the constant, and the reduced traffic from the server is covered by the increased peers as the current number of concurrent users increases. The method of claim 1,
And the number of delivery servers that transmit pieces of data streams to clients based on the server usage is determined. In the method of adjusting the traffic usage of the server,
Providing a current number of concurrent users; And
Adjusting the traffic usage of the server to decrease as the number of concurrent users increases based on a ratio of the constant to the number of concurrent users, which is determined using the number of concurrent users.
Including,
The peak value of the P2P based peer-to-server traffic is below the constant, and the traffic reduced from the server is covered by the increased peers as the current number of concurrent users increases. The method of claim 3,
And determining the number of delivery servers that transmit pieces of data streams to the client based on the server usage. A computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for performing the method of claim 3.

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