KR20020040574A - Distributed process for synchronizing the delivery of data from multiple web servers - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A data transmission method, a computer network system and computer program products are provided to transmit data through computer network like as the Internet using a plurality of servers. CONSTITUTION: The data transmission method comprises several steps. First, the data is requested from the first nod of the computer network through the first communication path, and the requested is received at the second node of the computer network. At least one of the electronic document objects which are transmitted to the first node is synchronized time order.

Description

Data transfer method, computer network system and computer program product {DISTRIBUTED PROCESS FOR SYNCHRONIZING THE DELIVERY OF DATA FROM MULTIPLE WEB SERVERS}

The present invention relates generally to computer systems, and more particularly to methods, systems and programs for transferring data over a computer network, such as the Internet using multiple servers.

A generalized client-server computer network 2 is shown in FIG. The network 2 has several nodes, ie servers 4, 6, 8, 10, which are interconnected with each other directly or indirectly through one of the other servers. Each server is essentially a stand-alone computer system (with one or more processors, memory devices, and communication devices), but the information is presented to individual users, or workstation clients 12, on a set of different nodes. It is suited (programmed) for one main purpose. A client is a member of a class or group of computers or computer systems that uses a service of another class or group to which it is not related. In addition, the client 12 may be a stand-alone computer system (personal computer, or PC) or “dumber” system suitable for limited use of the network 2 as well as Internet-enabled devices such as portable telephones or televisions. have. In rare cases, a single physical computer may serve as both a server and a client.

The information provided by the server may be in the form of data, such as in the form of a program executed locally on a given client 12 or a file used by another program. In addition, the users can communicate with each other not only in real time with each other but also with delayed file delivery, that is, users connected to the same server can communicate with each other without the network 2 and with the servers 4, 6 Users at different servers can communicate with each other via the network 2. The network may actually be local, but may be remotely connected to other systems (not shown) as indicated by the servers 8, 10.

In general, the structure of the network 2 is also applicable to the Internet. In a computer network such as the Internet, a client is a process (ie, a program or a task) that requests a service provided by another program. The client process uses the requested service without having to "know" any details about the other program or the service itself. When the server responds to the client process based on a request by the user, the server provides the filtered electronic information to the user.

E-mail, simple file transfer via file transfer protocol (FTP), remote computing via Telnet, "gopher" search, usenet newsgroups, hypertext file transfer ( Conventional protocols and services that allow the transmission of various types of information, including hypertext file delivery and multimedia streaming over the World Wide Web (WWW), have been established for the Internet. A given server can be dedicated to perform one of these operations or to execute multiple services. Typically, Internet services are accessed by specifying one unique address, a universal resource locator (URL). The URL has two basic components: the protocol used and the destination path name. For example, the URL "http://www.uspto.gov" (the homepage of the United States Patent & Trademark Office) is the hypertext transfer protocol ("http") and the server's pathname ("www.uspto. gov "). The server name is associated with a unique number (a TCP / IP address, or "domain").

The present invention relates to the transfer of computer files distributed over a network, such as the Internet, which is particularly applicable to the WWW, to provide linked files that are easy to use for user access. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, groups 14 of files or pages 16a-16h are correlated by providing hypertext links within each file (thus, group 14 is a typical " website " (web site) ". A hypertext link is an object (eg, an image or text) that can be seen on the display 18 of the workstation, which can be selected by the user (eg, using a pointing device or "mouse") and accordingly the client workstation 12. ) Can automatically request (ie, issue another URL) another page associated with that particular hypertext link. Hypertext links may appear as pictures, underlined, or as highlighted text or sentences to indicate that they are informational links rather than ordinary text or sentences.

The WWW page can have text, graphic (still) images and even multimedia objects such as sound recording or moving video clips. When a hypertext page contains files other than text, it is usually constructed by loading some individual files, for example, the hypertext file "main.html" is placed in the graphic image file "picture.gif" or the sound file "beep.wav". It may include a reference to it. When client workstation 12 sends a page request, such as page 16a, to the server, the server first (at least partially) sends the primary hypertext file associated with that page, and then the client subsequently or At the same time, it loads and displays the remaining files associated with that page. A given file may be sent in several separate pieces via the TCP / IP protocol. Then, the configured page is displayed on the workstation monitor 18 as shown in FIG. The page may be "larger" than the physical size of the monitor screen (ie, larger than the software programmed "window" provided to view the page), and a scroll bar to view other parts of the page. The same technique is used by the viewing software (web browser).

The dramatic increase in the number of users and service providers on the Internet has led to the problem of distributing a great deal of information over such physically and logically complex networks. One way to effectively distribute the transmission workload is to use multiple web servers. For example, many web sites contain advertisements (eg, "banners") that are stored electronically on a server separate from the web site's server. These "ad servers" provide a convenient source for managing advertisement creation, delivery and monitoring. Another example of using multiple web servers is redundant storage of information for one web site at another server location. This method allows companies to distribute information to the world at an improved rate. Advances in network attorney storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN) have created a space that can hold vast amounts of data in a centrally managed network of storage devices separate from the main HTTP server to which users connect. These networks are similar in concept to the "server farm" where servers are connected to each other (but integrated at a low level) over a high-speed LAN.

These techniques are useful, but the problem regarding the synchronization of information transmission remains. Two text fields 22, 24, four images (from www.doubleclick.com/image_ad.gif), 28 (from www.akamai.com/2323 /image_akamai.gif), as shown in FIG. , Web page (URL http://www.yahoo.com/mainpage.html), including 30 (from www.yahooserver1.com/image_3.jpg), 32 (from www.yahooserver2.com/image_4.jpg) Let's examine (20). In this example, when page 20 is downloaded by the web client, a sequence of subsequent events occurs.

Step 1: The page "mainpage.html" is retrieved from the server at www.yahoo.com (main server HTTP server).

Step 2: The main server HTTP server sends the page "mainpage.html" to the client and the client starts displaying the page.

(Steps 3a to 3c are efficiently performed simultaneously.)

Step 3a: The client displays the text field 22 followed by the text field 24 on the screen.

Step 3b: The client requests "image_ad.gif" from the server of doubleclick.com and subsequently displays it on the screen.

Step 3c: The client requests "image_akamai.gif" from the server of akamai.com and subsequently displays it on the screen.

Step 3d: The client requests "image_3.gif" from yahooserver1.com and subsequently displays it on the screen.

Step 3e: The client requests "image_4.gif" from yahooserver2.com and subsequently displays it on the screen.

Subsequent to steps 3a to 3e, the user can determine the total content of the page 20. However, due to the asynchronous distribution nature of the transmission, there is no control or pre-prediction of the order in which content arrives at the client and appears on the client's display screen. Thus, a prior art web page configuration includes a text field ("As you can see from the picture of Mountain Everest, in summer it is one of agroup of clustered mountains and is always covered by snow") 24 on the screen. It may appear, but Mount Everest's picture 28 takes more than 20 seconds to download and appear.

Extensions to the web browser, appropriate scripts or applets can also be used to delay the display until all content is downloaded so that all content can be effectively presented to the user at the same time. However, it is generally desirable to make the client available to whatever is downloaded. To achieve this, local scripting or programming is not a good idea, especially on thin clients such as palm-top computers, web phones, etc., where such complex interpretations or executions may be impractical. . Therefore, it would be desirable to devise an improved method of sending content to a web client in a more synchronized way. It would be more advantageous if the transmission of different parts of the electronic document could be coordinated in the same way as using existing network infrastructure to reduce costs and simplify use.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved method of accessing information retrieved via a network such as the Internet.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method of using multiple servers to efficiently distribute the workload when sending the content of an electronic document to a client.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method for synchronizing the transmission of content from multiple web servers using existing network connection infrastructure.

The above object is achieved by a data transmission method over a computer network, which generally issues a request from a first node to a second node of a computer network to identify an electronic document consisting of a plurality of objects using a first communication path. And synchronously transmitting at least one of the electronic document objects to the first node using a second communication path between a second node of the computer system and a third node storing at least another of the electronic document objects. Steps. In an exemplary embodiment, the second communication path has a faster transmission rate than that of the first communication path. In a client server network such as the Internet, the first node is a client workstation and the second and third nodes are network servers. Synchronization may be accomplished by ordering two or more of the electronic document objects in chronological order. Synchronization information may be inserted into a main file associated with the electronic document.

Additional objects, features and advantages of the present invention as well as those described above will become apparent in the detailed description which follows.

1 is a diagram of a typical computer network including interconnected servers and client workstations,

2 is a schematic diagram of object retrieval from a set of linked objects residing on a network, such as a page on a WWW;

3 is a diagram of a fully rendered web page showing relevant features such as text fields and images,

4 is a block diagram of a simplified network configuration according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;

5 is a logical flow diagram of browser / server interaction in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols for the main parts of the drawings

2: client-server computer network 4, 6, 8, 10: node or server

12: Workstation Client 14: Group of Files or Pages

16a to 16h: file or page

18: display of the workstation

20: Web page 22, 24: text field

26, 28, 30, 32: Image 42: Main web server

44: secondary web server 46: client

New features believed to be characteristic of the invention are set forth in the appended claims. However, the preferred mode of use as well as the invention itself, further objects and advantages thereof will be well understood when reading the following detailed description of the specific embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Referring now to FIG. 4, there is shown one embodiment 40 of a network configuration constructed in accordance with the present invention. Although network 40 is described in terms of the Internet, the present invention may be implemented in other networks and such references should not be interpreted in a limiting sense.

In general, network 40 consists of one primary web server 42, one or more secondary or secondary web servers 44, and one client workstation 46. The main web server 42 is connected to a server 44 such as Akamai, Doubleclick or NAS by a relatively high speed link 48. However, client 46 is connected to the server via slow link 50. The client 46 may be a desktop workstation, but those skilled in the art will understand that it may be a PDA, a web enabled cell phone, an internet enabled television, a game console, or the like.

Typically, commercial companies operating servers 42 and 44 make a significant investment in network connectivity. Servers 42 and 44 may be interconnected using, for example, high speed fiber optic links. In contrast, the client 46 is typically connected using a telephone modem. The present invention uses the different speeds of these links to allow web content downloaded from multiple servers to be ordered in a manner that is transparent to the user.

Consider again the example of FIG. 3. In accordance with the present invention, the web page 20 is more efficiently organized according to a subsequent series of steps.

Step 1: The client 46 has a "mainpage.html" from the server at www.yahoo.com, i.e. the main server 42 (this file "mainpage.html" contains the complete text associated with the text field 22 but Text field 24 is an embedded HTML file with an object tag provided as an HTML file inside the HTML file.

(Steps 2a and 2b are efficiently performed simultaneously.)

Step 2a: The main web server 42 sends the page "mainpage.html" to the client 46 and the client starts displaying the page.

Step 2b: The primary web server 42 informs the secondary server 44 via the quick link 48 that the client 46 is requesting the image file to be displayed (identification of the client 46 is " cookies " cookie) "or URL rewriting.).

(Steps 3a and 3f are efficiently performed simultaneously.)

Step 3a: Client 46 presents text field 22 on the display screen of the workstation.

Step 3b: Client 46 requests "image_ad.gif" from the server at doubleclick.com and subsequently displays it on the screen.

Step 3c: The client 46 requests "image_akamai.gif" from the server of akamai.com and subsequently displays it on the screen.

Step 3d: The client 46 requests "image_3.jpg" from the server of yahooserver1.com and subsequently displays it on the screen.

Step 3e: The client 46 requests "image_4.jpg" from the server of yahooserver2.com and subsequently displays it on the screen.

Step 3f: The client 46 requests an inserted object (HTML file) for the text field 24 from the server of www.yahoo.com (However, this main server 42 does not immediately transmit the text object. Do not).

Step 4: Secondary servers 44 (akmai, doubleclick, yahooserver1 and yahooserver2) complete the data transfer to their client 46 and then send the identified data back to the client 46 via the quick link 48. Notifies the main server 42 (in another embodiment, this confirmation may be sent just before the data transfer to the client expecting the transfer).

Step 5: After the primary server 42 receives the confirmation from the secondary server, it sends the requested file corresponding to the text field 24 to the client 46 and subsequently displays it on the screen.

The text "Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world" will appear first on the screen, followed by an image. Then, the text field ("As you can see from the picture of Mount Everest in summer it is one of a group of) only after the image appears based on ordering the information inserted within the web page 20 in accordance with the present invention. clustered mountains and is always covered by snow. ") (24). Therefore, this picture will appear before the commentary on Mount Everest's picture appears. Thus, the distributed data is transmitted in chronological order. Publications such as timeouts are outside the scope of the present invention, but the solution will be apparent to those skilled in the art upon reference to this disclosure.

The foregoing process will be better understood with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 5. First, the browser executes GET X on the content server (step 52). The content server records the client characteristics associated with the request (step 54). Then, a determination is made as to whether the client type is known to the server (step 56). If known, the server simply sends the requested item to the browser (step 58). If not known, the server may attach the appropriate JavaScript to the requested object (step 60). The server then records the time difference between transmission and reception (step 62) and makes another determination as to whether synchronization is required (step 64). If no synchronization is required, then only a notification can be sent to the appropriate server without any synchronization step (step 66). If synchronization is needed, another step is taken to synchronize the transmission (step 68).

Synchronization of page components can be accomplished in a variety of ways. As described above, for example, html-type tags may be used to insert ordering information into an electronic document. Alternatively, the synchronization information may be part of the URL for the object to be synchronized. For example, the picture of Mount Everest in FIG. 3 can be obtained using the URL http://server3.akamai.com/bigimage.jpg/DELIVERY_INFO where DELIVERY_INFO corresponds to the synchronization information. The server is suitably programmed to provide the mandatory notification based on this ordering information. Otherwise, network 40 may route information (data and messages) between multiple nodes using conventional protocols and agents. If the client has a low display resolution, some images (especially those configured to be displayed at the bottom of the page) may deviate from the original visible area, thus synchronizing with the rest of the objects displayed on the initial visible part of the page. It doesn't matter much. There are several ways to dynamically determine client-side video device characteristics. For example, it can be downloaded from a small program (or script) server and executed and returned to the server (or stored in a cookie for later reuse by the server). Alternatively, properties can be inferred from data in an optional HDTP accept tag provided by the client browser. The browser type and operating system are sent together in the User-H field of the first request from the client to the server, allowing the server to use this information. Transmission synchronization is dependent on client device characteristics, for example, a client with a low resolution monitor may not require transmission synchronization of certain images that are difficult to read.

Accordingly, the present invention provides a control method for timely representation of various components in an electronic document transmitted over a network. The present invention provides this functionality using existing hardware and utilizes a connection infrastructure for the network. In addition, the present invention allows for the ordering of events in the browser with little workstation overhead, facilitating the execution of programs / scripts that rely on the actual objects (ie images) on the page at that moment.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments, such detailed description is not intended to be in a limiting sense. DETAILED DESCRIPTION With reference to the detailed description of the present invention, various modifications of the disclosed embodiment will be apparent to those skilled in the art as well as to other embodiments of the present invention. For example, although specific embodiments have been described with respect to client server networks, those skilled in the art will appreciate that they may be practiced within peer-to-peer networks. Therefore, it is believed that such modifications may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.

According to the present invention, a program capable of representing various elements in an electronic document transmitted over a network in a timely manner and allowing a sequence of events in a browser with little workstation overhead, depending on the actual object (i.e. image) on the page at that moment. / Make it easy to run scripts

Claims (14)

In a method of transmitting data over a computer network, Receiving at the second node of the computer network a request from a first node of the computer network using a first communication path, the request identifying an electronic document consisting of a plurality of objects; Chronologically synchronizing the transmission of at least one of the electronic document objects to the first node, wherein the synchronizing step is between the second node of the computer system and a third node storing at least one of the electronic document object. Uses second communication path- Data transmission method comprising a. The method of claim 1, The second communication path has a higher transmission rate than the transmission rate of the first communication path. Data transfer method. The method of claim 1, Transmitting the at least one electronic document object to the first node based on the synchronizing step. Data transfer method. The method of claim 1, The synchronizing step further includes the step of ordering two or more of the electronic document objects in chronological order. Data transfer method. The method of claim 1, The synchronization step uses synchronization information embedded in a main file associated with the electronic document. Data transfer method. The method of claim 1, The synchronizing step includes the second node sending a message to the third node identifying the first node as one or more recipients of the electronic document object. Data transfer method. The method of claim 6, The synchronizing step further includes the second node receiving information about the transmission of the one or more electronic document objects from the third node. Data transfer method. The method of claim 1, The synchronizing step is based on at least one device characteristic of the first node. Data transfer method. The first node, The second node, The third node, A first communication path for transmitting data to the first node; A second communication path for data transmission between the second and third nodes; Means for receiving at the second node a request from the first node using the first communication path, the request identifying an electronic document consisting of a plurality of objects; Means for synchronizing in chronological order the transmission of at least one of the electronic document objects to the first node, wherein the synchronizing means uses a second communication path; Said third means for storing at least one other object of said electronic document object Computer network system. The method of claim 9, The second communication path has a faster transmission rate than the transmission rate of the first communication path, Said synchronization means ordering two or more of said electronic document objects in chronological order, using synchronization information embedded in a main file associated with said electronic document, and identifying said first node as one or more recipients of said electronic document object; To transmit from the second node to the third node, notify the second node of the transmission of the one or more electronic document objects from the third node, and based on at least one device characteristic of the first node. Computer network system. The method of claim 9, Means for transmitting the at least one electronic document object to the first node in response to the synchronization means. Computer network system. Computer-readable storage media, Program instructions stored on the storage medium Including, The program instruction, (Iii) receive at the second node of the computer network a request from a first node of the computer network using a first communication path, the request identifying an electronic document consisting of a plurality of objects; (Ii) at least one of the electronic document objects using a second communication path between the second node and a third node of the computer system, the third node storing at least one other object of the electronic document object Synchronizing in chronological order the transmission to the first node Computer program products. The method of claim 12, The second communication path has a faster transmission rate than the transmission rate of the first communication path, The program instruction synchronizes the transmission of the at least one electronic document by chronologically ordering two or more of the electronic document objects, and uses synchronization information embedded in a main file associated with the electronic document to Synchronize the transmission, synchronizing the transmission of the at least one electronic document object by sending a message from the second node to the third node, the message identifying the first node as one or more recipients of the electronic document object; Synchronize the transmission of the at least one electronic document object by causing a third node to notify the second node of the transmission of the one or more electronic document objects, wherein the at least one device characteristic is based on at least one device characteristic of the first node. To synchronize the transmission of electronic documents Computer program products. The method of claim 12, The program instruction transmits the at least one electronic document object to the first node based on the synchronization of the at least one electronic document object. Computer program products.