KR101441403B1 - Content Delivery Service system, apparatus and method for supporting contents delivery service thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a content transfer service system capable of assuring a stable content transfer service for a content provider requesting a content transfer service and capable of arbitrarily adjusting a transfer quality for each content, and a device and a content transfer service support method Wherein at least one local caching device stores content transmitted through a network and transmits the stored content to a terminal device of a requesting user, the content of which is requested by the content provider, The contents management server manages the contents according to the service setting information of the corresponding contents provider by distinguishing the contents from the non-contract contents of the provider, Register to receive the information and is arranged to provide a local caching the at least one of the service setting information.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to a content delivery service system, a device thereof, and a method for supporting a content delivery service,

The present invention relates to a content transmission service for reducing traffic by preventing duplicated content transmission in a network, and more particularly, to a content transmission service for guaranteeing a stable content transmission service to a content provider requesting a service, A content transmission service system capable of supporting transmission quality adjustment, a device thereof, and a method of supporting a content transmission service.

Due to the spread of smart phones with improved performance and the rapid increase of content providers that provide various contents based on them, the traffic of the mobile communication network is gradually increasing, and accordingly, there is a tendency that web downloading, video, The transmission speed of contents such as audio, image, application and the like is deteriorated, and the service quality problem is caused by this.

Particularly, as the content transmission technology has recently developed and user's demand for high-quality service has increased, large-capacity content transmission is frequently performed in online video services such as VOD (Video On Demand) and Live Streaming, music streaming, file uploading and file downloading ought.

However, although the frequency of these contents may vary according to their popularity, typically, redundant contents are delivered to a plurality of users in the same domain or the same wireless coverage, resulting in a high rate of occurrence of duplicate traffic, The increasing proportion of overlapping traffic in network traffic is increasing.

In this way, in the situation where the traffic of the communication network is rapidly increasing due to the transmission of the large amount of contents, the transmission of the duplicated contents further increases the traffic load of the communication network, so efforts to reduce the traffic through prevention of such duplicated transmission are required.

Accordingly, CDN (Contents Delivery Network) technology has been proposed in order to reliably deliver various contents including moving pictures such as movies and music videos to users while reducing traffic in the network.

The initial CDN technology stores content in a plurality of local caching devices distributed on a network, and distributes the content through a local caching device among a plurality of local caching devices through a load balancing device such as a GLB (Global Load Balance) server , And distributes the load of the content providing server by distributing the requested content to the terminal of the user. Recently, the local caching device collects the content transmitted from the content providing server to the terminal device according to a preset caching policy, And when a request for the content occurs, the content is transmitted to the terminal device on behalf of the content providing server, thereby reducing redundant traffic in a specific network.

However, since most of the existing CDN technologies offer content transmission services on a content providing server basis, they are selected and cached according to a random or predetermined rule, or a content transmitting service is provided on a content providing server basis, Therefore, it is impossible to freely set or change the transmission service environment, such as setting content to be provided and providing a high-quality content transmission service.

The present invention has been proposed in order to facilitate the convenience of a content provider using a content transfer service. The present invention guarantees a stable content transfer service to a content provider requesting a service and supports a content provider to arbitrarily adjust a transfer quality per content And a method for supporting the content transfer service.

As a means for solving the above problems, a content transfer service system according to the present invention is a content transfer service system for receiving and registering service setting information from a content provider requesting a content transfer service, and providing the service setting information to one or more local caching devices Management server; And a control unit for collecting and storing the content transmitted through the network according to the caching policy and transmitting the stored content to the user terminal instead of the content provider, Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 > local < / RTI >
Here, the at least one local caching device may include a content content area for storing content of a content provider requesting content transmission service, and a non-content content area for storing content of a content provider that does not request the content transmission service And storing the content provided by the content provider among the collected content in the assigned content content area. The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments.

Here, the service setting information includes service type information defining a content transmission method, a type of a content transmission network to be included in the service range, a capacity of a convention content area to be allocated to each local caching device, Information on the fixed content, and information on the important content having the service priority in comparison with other convention contents.

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In addition, the local caching apparatus according to the present invention may include a convention content area for storing content of a content provider requesting a content transfer service, and a non-convention content area for storing content of a content provider that does not request the content transfer service part; A communication interface unit for collecting contents through a network and transmitting the stored contents to a user terminal device; And a control unit configured to store content collected through the network according to a caching policy, and transmit the stored content to a terminal device of a user on behalf of the content provider, wherein, in accordance with the service setting information of the content provider requesting the content transfer service, And a controller for storing content of the content provider requesting the content transfer service among the contents collected by the communication interface unit in the agreement content area.

The controller of the local caching apparatus according to the present invention compares the remaining storage capacity of the convention content area with the size of the content before storing the content of the content provider requesting the content transmission service, , And may store the content in the non-convention content area.

Also, the controller of the local caching apparatus compares the remaining storage capacity of the agreement content area with the size of the content before storing the content of the content provider requesting the content transmission service, and if the storage space is insufficient, The content to be replaced among the content stored in at least one of the content area and the non-convention content area.

In addition, according to the present invention, the local caching apparatus divides a content storage space into a convention content area and a non-convention content area, and allocates the convention content area to the content provider in accordance with the service setting information of the content provider requesting the content transfer service ; Collecting content transmitted through a network according to a caching policy, and determining whether the collected content is a caching target; Determining whether the collected content is content of a content provider requesting a content transfer service when it is determined that the content is a caching target; And storing the collected content in the agreement content area if the collected content is the content of the content provider requesting the content transmission service according to the result of the checking.

The method of supporting a content transfer service according to the present invention includes the steps of: comparing a remaining storage capacity of a convention content area with a size of the collected content before storing; And selecting and deleting the replacement target content according to the caching policy information from the content stored in at least one of the agreement content area and the non-agreement content area when the size of the collected content is larger than the remaining storage allowable capacity .

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of supporting a content transfer service, the content being stored in the contract content area, the content being stored regardless of a caching policy and being excluded from selection of replacement content; And at least one of the one or more important contents having a higher priority than the other contents when the lower priority contents are selected as replacement objects according to the priority,
Information on at least one of the fixed content and the important content may be included in the service setting information.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of supporting a content transfer service, the method comprising: comparing a remaining storage capacity of the agreement content area with a size of the collected content; If it is large, in the storing step, the collected contents may be stored in the non-convention content area.

According to an aspect of the present invention, a content provider is provided with a content delivery service (CDN) to ensure a stable quality of content transmission, and in accordance with a selection of a content provider, In addition, the content provider can arbitrarily change content to be a target of high-quality transmission service, thereby satisfying various demands of the content provider.

In addition, it is possible to provide a service quality that is better than that of non-contract content that does not request content transmission for the content concluded by the content provider requesting the content transmission, Thereby enabling differential charging according to various service qualities.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a content transmission service system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
2A and 2B are block diagrams illustrating a configuration of a content transmission service system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a content management server according to an embodiment of the present invention.
4 is a flowchart illustrating a method of supporting a content transfer service of a content management server according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 to 7 are exemplary views of a content transmission service support screen provided to a content provider through a content management server according to an embodiment of the present invention.
8 is a block diagram showing a detailed configuration of a local caching apparatus in a content management server according to an embodiment of the present invention.
9 is a diagram for explaining a method of operating a storage space in a local caching apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
10 is a flowchart illustrating a method of supporting a content transmission service of a local caching apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description and the accompanying drawings, detailed description of well-known functions or constructions that may obscure the subject matter of the present invention will be omitted. It should be noted that the same constituent elements are denoted by the same reference numerals as possible throughout the drawings.

For reference, the configuration of the content transmission service system according to the present invention described below is merely a function unit-based representation of the configuration required to perform the content transmission service according to the present invention, and means that each device is hardware independent I do not. Accordingly, in actual implementation, two or more devices may be integrated into one server in hardware, as the case may be.

Further, in the following description, the contract content refers to the content of the content provider requesting the content transfer service according to the present invention, and the content to be guaranteed is a certain service quality. The non-convention content is the content transfer service according to the present invention Refers to content that is not requested by a content provider but does not necessarily guarantee quality of service.

In the following description, the fixed content refers to content that should always be stored in the local caching apparatus regardless of the caching policy, and the important content refers to the content having a priority in the caching policy as compared to other contents.

First, based on the above definition, a content transmission service system according to the present invention will be described.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a content transmission service system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, a content transmission service system according to an embodiment of the present invention may include a plurality of local caching devices 200, a cache controller 300, and a content management server 400.

1, reference numeral 10 denotes a network to which the contents transmission system according to the present invention is applied. The network 10 may be an IP-based wired communication network such as an Internet network, a mobile communication network such as an LTE (Long Term Evolution) , A Wi-Fi network, and combinations thereof. That is, the content transmission system according to the present invention can be applied to both wired and wireless communication networks without discrimination.

Reference numeral 100 denotes a terminal device of a user who receives content through a content transmission system according to the present invention, and transmits a content request message through the network 10 and receives a response message including the requested content. Such a terminal device 100 may be any electronic / information communication device including a communication function such as a desktop PC, a notebook computer, a tablet PC, a smart phone, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), an Internet TV It can also be.

Reference numeral 500 denotes a content providing server of the content provider that provides the content of the user terminal 100 through the network 10. [ In particular, the content providing server 500 is a server of a content provider that requests stable transmission of content to the terminal device 100 through the content transmission service according to the present invention. The content providing server 500 may be a service server that provides an online video service such as VOD (Video On Demand) and Live Streaming.

Reference numeral 600 denotes a content provider (CP) terminal device used by the content provider for connection to the content management server 400. The content provider can access the content management server 400 through the CP terminal 600 to request the content transfer service according to the present invention and set condition information related to the content transfer service as desired.

Now, the operation and function of each configuration of the content transmission service system according to the present invention will be described in more detail.

In the content transmission service system according to the present invention, a plurality of local caching apparatuses 200 are distributed on the network 10, and the content providing server 500 temporarily stores the content to be provided to the user And transmits the stored content to the terminal device 100 instead of the content providing device 500 when the content is requested from the terminal device 100.

Specifically, the local caching device 200 monitors data transmitted through the network 10 and transmits a message exchanged between the terminal device 100 and the content providing server 500 (for example, A cache hit determination for determining whether the requested content is stored using the detected message, a caching for the non-stored content, a search for a content stored in the terminal device (e.g., 100, and so on. In the above, the cache hit determination may be performed based on at least one of content address information (e.g., URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or content data of predetermined length (for example, prefix information) included in the detected message The local caching device 200 may extract the content address information included in the content request message (HTTP GET) and check whether the content having the same content address information is stored It is possible to determine whether a cache hit or a cache hit is confirmed by checking whether content having the same content data as the preset content data extracted from the content response messages (HTTP RESPONSE) is stored.

In addition, the local caching apparatus 200 may store the content data to be provided by the content provider in advance in a preload manner in connection with content caching, collect the content transmitted through the network 10, It is possible to selectively cache according to the policy. In addition, when caching content, the local caching device 200 allocates a storage space of a predetermined size to the content provider requesting the transfer service, so that the content of the agreement provided by the content provider requesting the transfer service does not request the transfer service So that the service quality of a certain level or higher can be ensured in comparison with the non-agreement contents of the non-content providers. In addition, the local caching device 200 stores specific contents among the convention contents as fixed contents according to a request of the contents provider requesting the transmission service, and always stores the fixed contents regardless of a caching policy, And to provide a stable transmission service for fixed contents. In addition, the local caching device 200 sets one or more important contents of the convention contents according to a request of the contents provider requesting the transmission service, and gives a priority to the important contents in the caching policy, So that the contents can receive a more stable transmission service than other contents.

 The cache controller 300 is a means for supporting content transmission through the plurality of local caching devices 200. More specifically, the cache controller 300 controls the flow of transmitting content to the terminal device 100, A handover control between a plurality of local caching devices 200 during content transmission, a chunk and a label calculation to be transmitted for each flow for a label-type content transmission, a Redundancy Elimination System (RES) And a CDS (Contents Delivery System) control function for providing a business platform using the CDN of the content provider. Specifically, the cache controller 300 monitors data exchanged between the plurality of terminal devices 100 and the content providing server 500, and secures control of the session by performing a transparent TCP proxy function. The cache controller 300 controls the traffic from the content providing server 500 so that the content is not duplicated to the network 10 when a cache hit is notified from the specific local caching device 200 to the specific content . For example, the cache controller 300 requests the content providing server 500 to stop the content transmission from the local cache device 200 to the cache hit notified content, and the content is further transmitted from the content providing server 500 Or blocks the forwarding so that the content transmitted from the content providing server 500 does not enter the network 10. [

In addition, the cache controller 300 divides the payload of the data transmitted from the content providing server 500 into chunks of a specific length while contents are transmitted by the local caching device 200, calculates each label, To the local caching device 200. The local caching device 200 sequentially transmits the chunks to the terminal device 100 according to the label transmitted from the cache controller 300.

Lastly, the content management server 400 supports a content provider to use the content transfer service according to the present invention. Specifically, the content management server 400 receives and registers the content transfer service request and the specific service setting information from the connected CP terminal 600, registers the registered setting information in the cache controller 300 and a plurality of local To the caching device 200 so that the service can be performed according to the service setting information. Here, the service setting information may include service type information defining a content transmission method, a type of a content transmission network, a cache capacity, fixed content information desired to be fixedly stored in the local caching device 200, And may include one or more of important content information having priority. In particular, the content management server 400 may transmit the fixed content information and the important content information requested by the content provider to the plurality of local caching devices 200 through the cache controller 300. The fixed content information and the important content information may each include at least one of the content data or information (e.g., content address information, content ID, etc.) that can identify the content.

In addition, the content management server 400 obtains the content of the content provider requesting the transmission service from the content providing server 500 and preloads the content to the plurality of local caching devices 200 through the cache controller 300 .

In addition, the content management server 400 may support a storage space for the content for the content provider that does not have a separate content providing server 500. That is, the content providing server 500 may partially perform the function of storing the contents of the contents provider and transmitting the contents to the terminal device 100 when the contents are requested.

As described above, the content transmission service system according to the present invention can be applied not only to an IP-based wired communication network such as the Internet, but also to a long term evolution (LTE) network, a mobile communication network such as a WCDMA network, Fi network, and a mobile network including a combination of these networks.

2A and 2B are block diagrams showing a detailed structure of a content transmission service system using content identification information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2A and 2B, a network 10 to which the present invention is applied includes a core 10 connecting one or more wireless or wired access networks 12 to which a user's terminal device 100 is connected and the access network 12, And a network 11 as shown in FIG.

Here, the access network 12 refers to a subscriber network capable of transmitting and receiving data to and from the terminal device 100 by various communication methods, such as wired or wireless, and includes a wired network such as a mobile communication network, a Wi-Fi network, And an access network. In particular, the wireless access network 12 includes a plurality of base stations such as a base station (BS), a base transceiver station (BTS), a node B, and an eNode B, and a base station controller (BSC) In recent years, a digital signal processing unit and a radio signal processing unit, which are integrally implemented in a base station, are separated into a digital unit (DU) and a radio unit (RU) And a plurality of RUs are connected to a centralized DU.

The core network 11 connects the plurality of access networks 12 and performs call processing, mobility control, traffic control, and switching. The core network 11 includes a packet core device (EPC) 11a, And a switching device 11b. The packet core device 11a manages and controls packet flow, and a plurality of switching devices 11b are responsible for delivering packets to the corresponding access network 12, respectively.

In such a network 10, the local caching device 200 may be distributed over the edge nodes of the network 10 described above. More specifically, as shown in FIG. 2A, a terminal device 100 (FIG. 2) connected to a switching device 11b connected to each of the access networks 12 of the core network 11 and connected to one or more access networks 12 To provide a content caching service. The cache controller 300 may be connected to the packet core device 11a of the core network 11 and may switch between the core network 11 and an external communication network It is possible to control the flow of the content data flowing into the network 10 through the apparatus. The content management server 400 may be disposed in an external communication network (for example, a public network such as an Internet network) in the same manner as the content providing server 500. That is, the content management server 400, the content providing server 500, and the CP terminal 600 may be connected to each other through a public network such as the Internet.

2b, the local caching device 200 may be directly connected to each access network 12, and more specifically, connected to the DU central station of the access network 12, It is possible to receive data related to transmission, judge whether or not a cache hit occurs, cache the content data according to the determination result, or provide the content to the terminal device 100 through the DU central station.

Next, each device of the content transmission service system according to the present invention will be described in detail.

3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a content management server 400 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3, the content management server 400 includes a communication unit 410, a control unit 420, a storage unit 430, a storage unit 430, . ≪ / RTI >

The communication unit 410 is a means for transmitting and receiving data to and from other devices. Specifically, the communication unit 410 can receive transfer service requests, service setting information, and convention contents from the connected CP terminal apparatus 600, 500, < / RTI > The communication unit 410 may communicate with the cache controller 300 and / or the plurality of local caching devices 200 to transmit the agreed-upon contents or transmit the service setting information of the contacted contents providers. The communication unit 410 may be implemented to support data communication through a public network such as the Internet.

The storage unit 430 is a means for storing data and programs generated during operation of the content management server 400 or required for operation. In the present invention, the storage unit 430 includes a content DB 431 for storing content data to be served, more concretely, content data of a content provider requesting a transmission service, and service setting information 432 < / RTI >

The control unit 420 controls the overall operation of the content management server 400 according to the present invention and controls the content provider to support the transmission service according to the present invention.

Hereinafter, a specific operation of the control unit 420 of the content management server 400 will be described with reference to FIG.

4 is a block diagram showing a detailed configuration of a local caching apparatus in a content management server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

4, the control unit 420 of the content management server 400 accesses the CP terminal apparatus 600 through the communication unit 410 and receives a transmission service request (S101). In operation S103, The service setting information is received and registered. For this, the controller 420 may provide a content transfer service support screen for receiving service setup information from the CP terminal 600.

Specifically, the controller 420 may determine whether to transmit the content according to a content transmission format, that is, a download method or a streaming method, according to the selection of the content provider (S103).

In addition, the controller 420 of the content management server 400 sets a type of a network to which the transmission service is applied according to the selection of the content provider through the CP terminal 600 (S105). More specifically, the content transmission service according to the present invention may include two or more different transmission service networks, and among the two or more different transmission service networks, a content provider may select a transmission service network . For example, the two or more different transmission service networks may include a transmission service network based on a general wired network and a transmission service network based on a mobile network. In addition, the different transmission service networks may include a local caching device 200 and a cache controller 300, respectively, and their arrangement and function may be different from each other.

In addition, the controller 420 of the content management server 400 according to the present invention can set a cache capacity to be allocated according to the selection of the content provider (S107). Here, the cache capacity means a storage capacity set to store the convention content of the content provider in each local cache apparatus 200. In this case, the content provider can guarantee the content storage corresponding to the set cache capacity .

In addition, the controller 420 of the content management server 400 according to the present invention may set one or more fixed content that can guarantee the quality of service among a plurality of contents that the content provider desires to provide to the user (S109) . In general, since the cache capacity of each local caching device 200 is limited, the local caching device 200 basically stores the requested content or the recently requested content according to the caching policy. Accordingly, the content cached in the local caching device 200 can be frequently replaced, and thus even if the same content is cached in the local caching device 200, rapid content transfer is possible. However, if the content is not cached, Therefore, it may be difficult to guarantee a stable quality of service because a delay may occur. On the other hand, the set fixed content is content that is always stored in the local caching device 200 regardless of the caching policy, and can guarantee stable and high-quality service. In step S109, the controller of the content management server 400 may acquire fixed content set from the content providing server 500 and preload the fixed content to each local caching device 200. [

In addition, the control unit 420 of the content management server 400 according to the present invention may set important content having priority in the caching policy among the content contents of the content providers according to the selection of the content provider (S111). The important content has priority over other contents in the caching policy and is not always stored in the local caching device 200 like the fixed content. However, the probability of being cached is higher than other contents in the caching or caching contents replacement process, It is possible to provide a transmission service of better quality than other contents.

In addition, the control unit 420 of the content management server 400 according to the present invention can set the content storage according to the selection of the content provider (S113). The content repository means a source server in which convention contents are stored and may be a content providing server 500 of a content provider or a separate network storage provided by a content management server 400 or a CDN provider It is possible. That is, the CDN provider can provide a storage space of the content management server 400 or a separate network repository to a content provider for a content server without a separate server or repository.

In addition, the controller 420 of the content management server 400 according to the present invention may set a content transmission protocol (for example, HTTP, HTTPS, etc.) and a port to be applied according to the selection of the content provider (S117).

In the above-described process, steps S105 to S107 may be selectively performed according to the transmission service network. That is, the present invention can be applied only when the local caching device 200 is implemented to support the caching service for the fixed content and the important content, and the remaining steps are necessarily required.

In this manner, when all the service information for the content transfer service is set, the content management server 400 can distribute some content (for example, fixed content) requiring preload to the local caching devices 200 (S117).

5 to 7 illustrate examples of a content transmission service support screen provided to a content provider through a content management server according to an embodiment of the present invention. 400 to request the content transfer service, the content management server 400 according to the present invention can provide one or more content transfer service support screens of FIGS. 5 to 7 to the CP terminal 600. The content provider can set desired service information through the content transfer service support screen through the CP terminal 600, and the service setting information is transferred to the content management server 400 and registered.

5 to 7, a content transmission service based on a wired network, a content transmission service based on a mobile network, and a content transmission service based on a wired network when a service is requested are basically provided, The content delivery service based on the network is configured to be selectable by the content provider.

5, the content transfer service support screen 70 displayed through the CP terminal apparatus 600 includes an area 71 for setting a service format, a mobile content transfer service based on a mobile network (a mobile CDN An area 76 for setting content storage, which is a storage location of the convention content, and an area 77 for setting information necessary for other content transmission services such as protocol and port number ).

The area 71 is provided for selecting one of a downloading method and a streaming method and an area 72 is provided for selecting whether to include a mobile CDN and an area 76 is provided for selecting one or more contents (URL, for example) of the source server, that is, the content providing server 500, or the content address information including the location information of the repository provided by the CDN provider to the content provider, And the area 77 is provided so as to be able to select a protocol (HTTP, HTTPS), a port number, a service domain name, a description of a service, and whether or not to use the CDN distribution.

6, the content transmission service support screen 70 includes at least one of an area 73 for setting a cache capacity to be fixedly allocated and an area 74 for setting fixed content As shown in FIG. The area 73 for setting the cache capacity displays one or more selectable cache capacities to select one of them, and the content provider can store contents in the local caching device 200 up to the cache capacity selected here.

In addition, an area 74 for setting fixed contents is provided so that fixed contents can be applied and fixed contents can be specified. Here, the fixed content may be set to content address information such as a URL or a file name, and the content address information may be provided to an origin server of the content provider, that is, an address of the content providing server 500 or a CDN provider And the location information of the repository to which the user belongs.

In addition, the content transmission service support screen 70 may include an area 75 for setting important content, as shown in FIG. The area 75 selects whether or not to designate important content, and sets important content as a file name or content address information. Here, the content address information may include the address of the content providing server 500, which is the source server, or the location information of the repository provided by the CDN provider to the content provider.

Next, the local caching device 200 will be described.

8 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a local caching apparatus 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 8, the local caching device 200 may include a communication interface 210, a storage 220, and a controller 230.

The communication interface unit 210 is a means for collecting data transmitted through the network 10 or transmitting specific data. In the present invention, the communication interface unit 210 transmits and receives data to and from the cache controller 300 through the network 10, in particular, can transmit and receive control messages related to content transmission. In addition, the communication interface unit 210 collects data transmitted through the network 10. More specifically, the communication interface 210 collects data transmitted between the packet core device 11a and the access network 12 through the switching device 11b of the network 10 and provides the collected data to the controller 230 can do. In this case, the data collection may include a mirroring module 211 for copying data transferred through the network 10 as it is so as not to affect the traffic.

The storage unit 220 is a structure for storing contents and related information to be provided for the contents transfer service. The storage unit 220 stores a part or all of the contents to be served. The contents to be served include a content content 221 of the content provider requesting the content transmission service, a non- Non-convention content 222. [ The agreement content 221 and the non-agreement content 222 are separately stored, and in particular, the agreement content 221 can be managed for each content provider. For example, the agreement content 221 and the non-agreement content 222 may be stored in physically separated storage spaces. In addition, the storage unit 220 may store the caching policy information 223. The caching policy information 223 may include a selection criterion of content to be cached, a criterion for selecting a replacement target content when the storage capacity is insufficient, and the like.

The control unit 230 controls the entire caching service operation by the local caching device 200 and basically monitors data collected through the communication interface unit 210 to transmit a message related to content transmission , Content response message, etc.). Then, the requested content is checked from the detected message, and it is determined whether or not the cache hit occurs. If the cache hit is determined, the controller 230 notifies the cache controller 300 of the cache hit and transmits the data of the content stored in the storage unit 220 to the terminal device 100. [ On the other hand, when the cache hit is not performed, content caching can be performed according to the caching policy information 223 stored in the storage unit 220. [

The control unit 230 may include a cache management module 231, a monitoring module 232, and a content providing module 233.

The cache management module 231 manages content cached or cached contents in the local caching device 200. More specifically, the cache management module 231 can manage the content cached in the storage unit 220 according to a preset policy, that is, the cache policy information 223. [ Specifically, the cache management module 231 selectively saves the content of the content provider according to the cache policy information 223.

The monitoring module 232 is for monitoring data transmitted through the network 10 and monitors data collected through the network 10 through the communication interface 210 to detect a message related to content transmission . For example, the monitoring module 232 may detect a message using a predetermined protocol (HTTP, HTTPS) and a port number among data collected through the communication interface 210. [ When the content transmission related message is detected, the monitoring module 232 extracts content address information and content data (i.e., prefix information) having a predetermined length from the message, and transmits the extracted information to the cache management module 231 ).

The cache management module 231 confirms whether the requested content is stored using the content address information or the predetermined length of the content data (i.e., whether or not the cache hit occurs).

The content providing module 233 is a means for providing the cache hit content data to the terminal device 100 requesting the content and transmits the content data determined as a cache hit by the cache management module 231 to the terminal device 100 ) As the destination and transmits the reconstructed data to the terminal device 10. For example, when the local caching device 200 is applied to a mobile communication network, the content providing module 233 acquires tunneling identification information (TEID) allocated for downlink transmission to the terminal device 100 Content data is configured to be a mobile packet transmitted from the content providing server 500 or the content management server 400 to the terminal device 100 using the IP address and the tunneling identification information (TEID) of the terminal device 100 And transmits the mobile packet to the access network 12 of the network 10. Here, the mobile packet is transmitted through a GTP tunnel between a base station and a service gateway in a mobile communication network. As described above, a mobile packet is transmitted to an IP packet destined for the terminal device 100, A GTP header including identification information, a UDP header, and an IP header for GTP tunneling between the base station and the service gateway.

Next, a method of supporting a content transfer service according to the present invention in the local caching device 200 configured as described above will be described with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10. FIG.

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining a method of operating a storage space in a local caching apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a method of supporting a content transmission service of a local caching apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention .

Referring to FIG. 10, the local caching apparatus 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a storage unit 220 for storing the entire storage space of the storage unit 220, or a storage space allocated for content caching, And allocates the area for the agreement content to one or more content providers that request the content transmission service (S201). To this end, the local caching device 200 can receive the service setting information of each of the one or more content providers requesting the content transfer service from the content management server 400 through the cache controller 300, The storage space can be allocated according to the caching capacity set in the cache memory.

FIG. 9A is a schematic diagram illustrating the structure of the storage unit 200 of the local caching apparatus 200 according to the embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 9, A contract content area 51 and a convention content area 52. The convention content area 52 is further divided into one or more content providers CP A and CP B.

Referring to FIG. 10, the local caching device 200 receives the fixed content set for each content provider requesting the content transmission service, and stores the fixed content in an area allocated to the corresponding content provider of the storage 200 (S203) . The step S203 may be performed only for the content provider that selected the fixed content. In FIG. 9A, the content A 1 stored in the storage space of the content provider CP A indicates fixed content, and the content A 2 indicates content provided by the CP A other than the fixed content.

 In addition, the local caching device 200 registers important content with reference to the above-described service setting information (S205). Here, the registration of the important content may include information capable of identifying important content, for example, content address information, content ID, prefix information, and the like.

The controller 230 of the local caching device 200 monitors the data collected through the communication interface 210 and transmits the content requested from the terminal device 100 or the content requested from the network 10 to the terminal device 100 (S207). ≪ / RTI > Here, the determination as to whether or not the content is cached can be made by checking whether or not the content is stored in the storage unit 230. That is, when non-cached content is transmitted, it can be determined that it is necessary to cache the content.

As described above, when content caching is required, the controller 230 may first check a storage space for storing content to be cached (S209). That is, if the content to be cached is a convention content or a non-convention content, and if it is a convention content, it is confirmed who the content provider is and confirms the allocation area of the corresponding content provider among the non-convention content area or the convention content area. Such confirmation may be based on the URL of the source server or the content address information including the location information of the repository provided by the CDN provider to the content provider.

Then, the controller 230 determines whether the storage space is insufficient based on the capacity of the content (S211). If the content is not insufficient, the content is stored in the confirmed storage space. If the content is insufficient, the replacement target content is selected according to the cache policy information, the selected replacement content is deleted, and the content is cached (S213 to 217).

The content caching process will be described with reference to FIG.

As shown in FIG. 9 (b), the contract content area 52 is allocated to the area of the content provider CP A and the area of CP B, and the contract content A1, A2, A3, A4 It is assumed that convention contents B1 and B2 are stored in the area of CP B and non-convention contents C1, D1 and E1 are stored. Here, the agreement contents A1, A2, A3 and A4 are contents provided by the contracted content provider CP A, in particular, A1 is fixed content, and the agreement contents B1 and B2 are contents provided by the contracted content provider CP B. The non-contractual contents C1, D1, and E1 may be provided by different content providers, i.e., non-contracted contents that do not request the contents transfer service according to the present invention.

In this state, when it is assumed that the non-convention content D2 is further received and cached, the local caching apparatus 200 determines that the remaining storage capacity of the storage space of the non-convention content area 51 . At this time, when it is assumed that the remaining storage capacity is smaller than the size of the newly received content D2, the local caching device 200 must select the replacement target content according to the caching policy. At this time, The replacement target content is selected from the content stored in the area 51. [ At this time, the content to be replaced may be selected in response to the request frequency, the request time, the storage time, etc., the content requested the least recently, the content requested the longest ago, or the content stored first.

In the embodiment of the present invention, as shown in (c) of FIG. 9, the content C1 stored first in accordance with the caching policy is deleted from the content data stored in the non-convention content area 51, D2.

As another example, if the agreement content A5 of the content provider CP A is received in the above state, the local caching device 200 determines the remaining storage capacity of the storage space allocated to the content provider CP A Check to see if there is not enough space available. 9C, if the storage space is insufficient, the local caching device 200 must select the replacement target content as described above. At this time, the selection of the replacement target content may be performed according to the caching policy information However, the fixed content A1 is excluded from the selection range of the replacement target content, and when there is important content among the stored contents, the replacement target content is selected in consideration of the priority. That is, as shown in FIG. 9 (d), the local caching device 200 deletes the content A2 first stored among the convention content A2, A3, and A4 excluding the fixed content A1, and stores the convention content A5 do.

In the present invention, in the present invention, when the convention content is stored, the selection of the replacement target content is not performed only within the allocation area of the content provider CP A, but may be extended to the non-convention content area 51 Lt; / RTI > In the allocation area of the CP A, if the storage space is insufficient, the non-agreement content area 51 may store the non-agreement content D1, E1, and D2 And the agreement contents A2, A3, and A4 according to the caching policy.

According to the above description, it is possible to always provide a stable and continuous content transfer service by storing the convention content designated as the fixed content by the content provider in the storage unit 220, and storing the convention content through a space allocated separately , It is possible to provide a better service quality by increasing the cache hit ratio as compared with the non-contract content.

The method for supporting a content transmission service according to the present invention may be implemented in a form of software readable by various computer means and recorded in a computer-readable recording medium. Here, the recording medium may include program commands, data files, data structures, and the like, alone or in combination. Program instructions to be recorded on a recording 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. For example, the recording medium may be an optical recording medium such as a magnetic medium such as a hard disk, a floppy disk and a magnetic tape, a compact disk read only memory (CD-ROM), a digital video disk (DVD) Includes a hardware device that is specially configured to store and execute program instructions such as a magneto-optical medium such as a floppy disk and a ROM, a random access memory (RAM), a flash memory, do. Examples of program instructions may include machine language code such as those generated by a compiler, as well as high-level language code that may be executed by a computer using an interpreter or the like. Such a hardware device may be configured to operate as one or more software modules to perform the operations of the present invention, and vice versa.

While the present invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be practical exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments, but, on the contrary, It will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Furthermore, although specific terms are used in this specification and the drawings, they are used in a generic sense only to facilitate the description of the invention and to facilitate understanding of the invention, and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.

The present invention can be applied to a CDN (Content Deliver Network), and a content provider can guarantee a stable content transmission quality through a content delivery service (CDN), and can guarantee a high quality transmission service to specific contents according to a selection of a content provider In addition, the content provider can arbitrarily change content to be a target of high-quality transmission service, and it is industrially applicable because it can satisfy various demands of a content provider.

100: terminal device
200: Local caching device
300: Cache controller
400: Content management server
500: Content providing server
600: CP (Contents Provider) terminal device

Claims (14)

A content management server for receiving and registering service configuration information from a content provider requesting a content transfer service and providing the service configuration information to one or more local caching devices; And
A content server for collecting and storing content transmitted through a network according to a caching policy and transmitting the stored content to a terminal device on behalf of the content provider and managing content of the content provider requesting the content transmission service according to the service setting information And a local caching device,
Wherein the at least one local caching device comprises:
A content storage area is divided into a convention content area for storing content of a content provider requesting a content transfer service and a non-convention content area in which content of a content provider that does not request the content transfer service is stored, Therefore, it is possible to allocate the agreement content area to the content provider requesting the content transmission service, determine whether the collected content is a caching target, check whether the collected content is content of the content provider requesting the content transmission service And if the collected content is content of the content provider requesting the content transfer service, stores the collected content in the assigned content content area. The method of claim 1,
The type of content transmission network to be included in the service range, the capacity of the agreement content area to be allocated by each local caching device, the information about the fixed content to be always stored in each local caching device, And information on important contents having a service priority relative to other convention contents. delete delete A storage unit for storing a content of a content provider requesting a content transfer service and a non-convention content area for storing content of a content provider that does not request the content transfer service;
A communication interface unit for collecting contents transmitted through a network and transmitting the stored contents to a terminal device; And
Storing content collected through the network according to a caching policy and transmitting the stored content to the terminal device on behalf of the content providing server,
The content distribution server determines whether the collected content is a caching target or not, and if the collected content is a content provider requesting the content transmission service, And if the collected content is content of a content provider requesting a content transfer service, storing the collected content in the assigned content content area. 6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the control unit
Comparing the remaining storage capacity of the convention content area with the size of the content before storing the content of the content provider requesting the content transmission service and storing the content in the non-convention content area when the storage space is insufficient Lt; / RTI > 7. The apparatus of claim 5 or 6, wherein the control unit
Comparing the remaining storage capacity of the agreement content area with the size of the content before storing the content of the content provider requesting the content transmission service, and if the storage space is insufficient, storing the agreement content area and the non- And selects and deletes the replacement target content from among the other contents stored in the at least one content. 8. The method of claim 7,
The content stored in the agreement content area may include:
Wherein the content includes at least one fixed content that is stored regardless of a caching policy,
The control unit
Wherein when the replacement target content is selected, the fixed content is excluded. 8. The method of claim 7,
The content stored in the agreement content area may include:
The caching policy includes one or more critical content sets with a higher priority than other content,
Wherein the controller selects the replacement target content according to the priority when selecting the replacement target content. 6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the control unit
Wherein the local caching unit distinguishes the content of the content provider requesting the content transmission service based on the content address information. The local caching device,
Allocating the agreement content area to the content provider according to the service setting information of the content provider requesting the content transfer service, by dividing the content storage space into the agreement content area and the non-agreement content area;
Collecting content transmitted through a network according to a caching policy, and determining whether the collected content is a caching target;
Determining whether the collected content is content of a content provider requesting a content transfer service when it is determined that the content is a caching target;
And storing the collected content in the agreement content area if the collected content is the content of the content provider requesting the content transmission service according to the result of the checking. 12. The method of claim 11,
Comparing the remaining storage capacity of the agreement content area with the size of the collected content before the storing step;
Further comprising the step of selecting and deleting the replacement target content from the content stored in the agreement content area when the size of the collected content is larger than the remaining storage allowable capacity. 12. The method of claim 11,
The content stored in the agreement content area may include:
One or more fixed content that is stored regardless of the caching policy and is excluded from selection of replacement content; And
When at least one of the contents is selected as a replacement object in accordance with the priority, at least one of the one or more important contents having a higher priority than the other contents,
Wherein the information about at least one of the fixed content and the important content is included in the service setting information. 12. The method of claim 11,
Further comprising the step of comparing the remaining storable capacity of the agreement content area with the size of the collected content before the storing step,
And storing the collected content in a non-convention content area in the storing step if the collected content is larger than the remaining storage allowable capacity.

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