KR20120084513A - System and method for executing buffering in streaming service based on peer to peer and system for distributing applicaiotn processing buffering - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A buffering performing system in a P2P streaming service and a method thereof and a system for providing an application processing a buffering on a client are provided to additionally buffer a fixed quantity without discarding pieces already used for playing content when synchronization between peers is not executed, thereby maximizing a data sharing ratio between the peers. CONSTITUTION: An application operated on a client is distributed to the client. The application receives pieces of a data stream from a server offering a streaming service or from the other peer receiving the streaming service in order to store in a first buffer(1110). The application(1120) stores a part of pieces, used for playing content among the pieces, in a second buffer. The pieces stored in the first and the second buffers are transmitted to the other clients receiving the streaming service.

Description

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR EXECUTING BUFFERING IN STREAMING SERVICE BASED ON PEER TO PEER AND SYSTEM FOR DISTRIBUTING APPLICAIOTN PROCESSING BUFFERING}

Embodiments of the present invention relate to a system and method for performing buffering in a P2P based streaming service, and a system for distributing an application for processing buffering in a client.

Peer-to-peer service is a service that receives information directly from all personal computers connected to the Internet, unlike the existing 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, the client using P2P based streaming service communicates with P2P based streaming server by including the necessary function to use P2P based streaming service in the dedicated player that plays contents such as multimedia file. To realize streaming services. More specifically, the server provides the user with a list of contents that can be provided through the web page, and the client clicks on the content to be serviced from the list. 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 the content from the user client, the peer searches for the peer that has the selected content and provides the content to the user client. That is, the dedicated player of the user client receives and plays the file fragments of the selected content from the server or other peers holding the content.

At this time, in the P2P-based streaming service according to the prior art, it is difficult to maintain synchronization between peers and between the peer and the server according to the network conditions of the peers. In this case, there is a problem in that the sharing rate of data is lowered when the peers and the peers and the server are not synchronized.

In the present specification, a system and method for efficiently performing peer-to-peer or peer-to-server synchronization in a P2P-based streaming service and maximizing data sharing rate are provided.

A buffering system and method are provided that can maximize the sharing rate of data among peers by additionally buffering a certain amount without discarding pieces already used for playing content even when synchronization between peers is not performed.

By dynamically adjusting the size of a buffer for storing pieces of a transmitted data stream in accordance with network conditions, a buffering system and method are provided that can prevent sharing rate degradation by maintaining synchronization between peers and between peers and servers.

A buffering system and method that dynamically increases (or decreases) the size of a buffer, but keeps the size of the entire buffer the same by decreasing (or increasing) the size of the buffer that buffers the pieces already used for content playback. This is provided.

A system for distributing an application, the method comprising receiving pieces of a data stream from a server providing a streaming service or at least one other peer receiving a streaming service and storing the pieces of the data stream in a first buffer, and used to play content among the stored pieces. A system is provided for distributing an application running on a client to a client to store at least some of the pieces in a second buffer.

According to one side, the pieces stored in the first buffer and the second buffer may be transmitted to at least one other client provided with a streaming service.

According to another aspect, the size of the first buffer may be dynamically adjusted by an application according to network conditions.

According to another aspect, the application may reduce the size of the second buffer by increasing the size of the first buffer or increase the size of the second buffer by decreasing the size of the first buffer to increase the size of the first buffer and the second buffer. The size of the entire buffer including the buffer can be kept the same.

According to another aspect, the first buffer is a first area in which pieces received through a delivery server are stored using progressive, a piece selection method for sequentially receiving pieces, and receives progressives from at least one other client. The pieces received from at least one other client are stored using a second area where the received pieces are stored and a rare first, which is a piece selection method for first receiving the rarest piece on the network. It may include a third region to be.

According to another aspect, the size of the third buffer may be dynamically adjusted by an application according to a network situation, thereby adjusting the size of the first buffer.

According to another aspect, the network situation may include a download / upload speed at the client, and the size of the first buffer may be dynamically adjusted by the application according to the download / upload speed.

According to another aspect, the server may include a plurality of packetizing servers, the plurality of packetizing server, the primary packetizing server group and the secondary packetizing server each including the same number of packetizing server In the case of a failure of the primary packetizing server group, the secondary packetizing server group may replace the primary packetizing server group.

According to another aspect, the server may include a plurality of delivery servers, the traffic may be adjusted by adjusting the number of the plurality of delivery servers used in accordance with the number of simultaneous access in the system providing a streaming service.

Storing pieces of the data stream transmitted from the server providing the streaming service or at least one other peer receiving the streaming service in a first buffer and at least a portion of the pieces used for playing the content among the stored pieces; A buffering method is provided, comprising: storing in a buffer, wherein the pieces stored in the first buffer and the second buffer can be transmitted to at least one other peer receiving a streaming service.

Even if the synchronization is not performed between peers, the data sharing rate between peers can be maximized by buffering an additional amount without discarding pieces already used for content playback.

By dynamically adjusting the size of the buffer that stores the pieces of the transmitted data stream according to network conditions, the sharing rate can be prevented by maintaining synchronization between peers and between peers and servers.

The size of the buffer may be dynamically increased (or decreased), but the size of the buffer buffering pieces already used for content reproduction may be reduced (or increased) by the same size to keep the size of the entire buffer the same.

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 describing redundancy of a delivery server according to one 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 diagram showing an example of a buffer for buffering a piece used for reproduction of content according to one embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a buffer of a peer capable of size-specific adjustment according to an embodiment of the present invention.
10 is a block diagram illustrating an internal configuration of a buffering system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
11 is a flowchart illustrating a buffering method 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, when four games are played during a professional baseball relay, if four media sources 110 exist for four games, 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 according to 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 mean 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.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for describing a buffer available in a peer according to one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 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. 7 illustrates the first buffer 710 to the third buffer 730.

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 may include a first area 721 for storing pieces received as a 'progressive' through a delivery server, and a second area for storing pieces received as a 'progressive' through 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.

In this case, when the peer and the peer are not synchronized, the sharing rate may decrease. Even in this case, to maximize the sharing rate, peers according to embodiments of the present invention may additionally use a buffer (hereinafter, referred to as 'Z-Buffer') for buffering a certain amount without discarding the used piece of content. .

8 is a diagram showing an example of a buffer for buffering a piece used for reproduction of content according to one embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 8, the first dotted line box 810 indicates the size 811 of the buffer of the first peer and the second peer and the shareable buffer when the first peer and the second peer are not synchronized. That is, when synchronization is not performed between the first peer and the second peer, the sharing rate of data is reduced. The second dotted line box 820 indicates that the share rate of data can be maximized by increasing the size 821 of the shareable buffer by using the Z-Buffer.

In general, buffering should minimize the use of buffering because it has the disadvantage of smoothly playing content in a streaming service and increasing screening efficiency due to high sharing efficiency or delay. However, as described above, when using the size of the buffer to minimize the buffering, if the peer-to-peer synchronization is not achieved, there is a problem that the sharing rate is reduced. Therefore, in the peers according to the embodiments of the present invention, the buffers may be additionally buffered without discarding a predetermined amount of the pieces that have already been reproduced, thereby minimizing the use of buffering and maximizing the sharing rate.

In addition, in the P2P streaming service, as described above, it is difficult to maintain synchronization between peers or between peers and servers depending on the network conditions of the peers, and thus, the sharing rate may decrease. Thus, peers according to embodiments of the present invention can maintain the size of the entire buffer, but by dynamically adjusting the size of the existing buffer and the size of the Z-Buffer, it is possible to maintain synchronization between peers and between the peer and the server.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a buffer of a peer capable of size-specific adjustment according to an embodiment of the present invention. Here, area C 910 has already been described as an area for storing pieces received as 'Rarest First' through another peer in FIG. 7. In the embodiment according to FIG. 9, the buffer size of the region C 910 is increased from the first size 920 to the second size 930, and at the same time, the size of the Z-Buffer is increased from the third size 940 to the fourth size. May be reduced to size 950. In this case, the size of the entire buffer can be kept constant.

That is, it is difficult to maintain synchronization between peers and between peers and servers when the network conditions of the peers are bad, and the sharing rate is lowered when synchronization is not maintained. Therefore, peers according to embodiments of the present invention can dynamically adjust the size of the existing buffer and the size of the Z-Buffer, thereby maintaining synchronization to prevent a decrease in sharing rate.

In other words, by using Z-Buffer buffering a certain amount of the already played piece, the sharing rate can be maximized by increasing the parts to be shared even if the pieces buffered with each other are not synchronized between peers. In addition, by dynamically adjusting the size of the existing buffer and the Z-Buffer, it is possible to maintain synchronization between peers and between peers and servers.

The above-described network situation may be determined through at least one of all factors capable of measuring the state of the network, such as a download / upload speed at a peer, and the size of the buffer may be determined according to the network situation.

In FIG. 9, only an example of simultaneously adjusting the size of the region C 910 and the size of the Z-Buffer is described. However, the size of the region A or the region B may be adjusted as needed, and the size of two or more regions among the three regions may be adjusted. You can also adjust.

10 is a block diagram illustrating an internal configuration of a buffering system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The buffering system 1000 according to the present embodiment may be included in and operate in a terminal requiring buffering, such as the above-described peer, that is, a client terminal provided with a P2P streaming service. In this case, as illustrated in FIG. 10, the buffering system 1000 may include a storage unit 1010, and further include a buffer size determiner 1020 as necessary.

The storage unit 1010 stores pieces of the data stream transmitted from a server providing a streaming service or at least one other peer provided with the streaming service in a first buffer, and stores the pieces of the pieces used for reproduction of content among the stored pieces. Store at least a portion in the second buffer. In this case, the pieces stored in the first buffer and the second buffer may be provided to at least one other peer receiving the streaming service. That is, even if the peer-to-peer synchronization is not correct, by buffering a certain amount without using the second buffer without discarding the pieces already used for playback, the pieces already used for playback can be delivered to other peers that have not yet received. The sharing rate of data between peers can be maximized.

The buffer size controller 1020 dynamically adjusts the size of the first buffer according to a network situation. In this case, the buffer size adjusting unit 1020 reduces the size of the second buffer by increasing the size of the first buffer or increases the size of the second buffer by decreasing the size of the first buffer, thereby increasing the size of the entire buffer. Can be adjusted to remain the same. Here, as an example, the network situation may include a download / upload speed at the peer. In this case, the buffer size adjusting unit 1020 may adjust the sizes of the first buffer and the second buffer according to the download / upload speed. For example, the size of the first buffer may be predetermined in advance according to the range of the download / upload speed. In this case, the buffer size controller 1020 may increase or decrease the size of the first buffer to a predetermined size according to the current download / upload speed.

In this case, the first buffer is a first area for storing pieces received from the server using progressive, which is a piece selection method for sequentially receiving pieces, and a piece received from at least one other peer using progressive. Third area for storing pieces received from at least one other peer using a second area for storing them and a rarest first, a piece selection method for first receiving the rarest piece on the network. It can include an area. In this case, the buffer size controller 1020 may adjust the size of the first buffer by adjusting the size of the third region.

11 is a flowchart illustrating a buffering method according to an embodiment of the present invention. The buffering method according to the present embodiment may be performed by the buffering system 1000 described with reference to FIG. 10. In FIG. 11, a buffering method will be described by describing a process in which each step is performed by the buffering system 1000.

In operation 1110, the buffering system 1000 stores pieces of a data stream transmitted from a server providing a streaming service or at least one other peer receiving the streaming service in a first buffer.

In operation 1120, the buffering system 1000 stores at least a portion of the stored pieces used to reproduce the content in the second buffer. In this case, the pieces stored in the first buffer and the second buffer may be provided to at least one other peer receiving the streaming service. That is, even if the peer-to-peer synchronization is not correct, by buffering a certain amount without using the second buffer without discarding the pieces already used for playback, the pieces already used for playback can be delivered to other peers that have not yet received. The sharing rate of data between peers can be maximized.

In operation 1130, the buffering system 1000 dynamically adjusts the size of the first buffer according to network conditions. In this case, the buffering system 1000 may reduce the size of the second buffer by increasing the size of the first buffer or increase the size of the second buffer by decreasing the size of the first buffer, whereby the size of the entire buffer is the same. Can be adjusted to maintain Here, as an example, the network situation may include a download / upload speed at the peer. In this case, the buffering system 1000 may adjust the sizes of the first buffer and the second buffer according to the download / upload speed. For example, the size of the first buffer may be predetermined in advance according to the range of the download / upload speed. In this case, the buffering system 1000 may increase or decrease the size of the first buffer to a predetermined size according to the current download / upload speed.

In this case, the first buffer is a first area for storing pieces received from the server using progressive, a piece selection method for sequentially receiving pieces, and storing pieces received from at least one other peer using progressive. And a third area for storing pieces received from at least one other peer using a rare list first, which is a piece selection method for first receiving the rarest piece on the network. In this case, the buffering system 1000 may adjust the size of the first buffer by adjusting the size of the third region.

The buffering method according to another embodiment may substantially perform the role of the buffering system 1000 and may be performed by an application installed in the client terminal. In this case, the system for distributing such an application as a client may be included in a system for providing a P2P based streaming service or may be a system linked with a system for providing a P2P based streaming service.

The above-described application receives pieces of a data stream from a server providing a streaming service or at least one other peer receiving a streaming service and stores the pieces of the data stream in a first buffer, and at least some of the pieces used for playing the content among the stored pieces. May be operated on the client to store the data in the second buffer.

Pieces stored in the first buffer and the second buffer may be transmitted to at least one other client provided with the streaming service, and the size of the first buffer may be dynamically adjusted by an application according to network conditions. In this case, the application includes the first buffer and the second buffer by decreasing the size of the second buffer by increasing the size of the first buffer or by increasing the size of the second buffer by decreasing the size of the first buffer. The total buffer size can be kept the same.

In addition, the first buffer is a first area in which pieces received through the delivery server are stored using progressive, which is a piece selection method for sequentially receiving pieces, and is received using progressive from at least one other client. A second area in which pieces are stored and a third area in which pieces received from at least one other client are stored using a rare first first which is a piece selection method for first receiving the rarest piece on the network. It may include. In this case, the size of the third region may be dynamically adjusted by an application according to a network situation, and thus the size of the first buffer may be adjusted.

The network situation may include a download / upload speed at the client, in which case the size of the first buffer may be dynamically adjusted by the application according to the download / upload speed.

The server providing the streaming service may include a plurality of packetizing servers. In this case, the plurality of packetizing servers may include a primary packetizing server group and a secondary packet tie server each including the same number of packetizing servers. In the case of failure of the primary packetizing server group, the secondary packetizing server group may replace the primary packetizing server group.

In addition, the server providing the streaming service may include a plurality of delivery servers, and in this case, the traffic may be adjusted by adjusting the number of the plurality of delivery servers used according to the number of simultaneous accesses in the system providing the streaming service. have.

Of course, the server providing the streaming service may include both a plurality of packetizing servers and a plurality of delivery servers.

As such, using the buffering system and method according to the embodiments of the present invention, even if there is no synchronization between peers, by additionally buffering a certain amount of data without discarding pieces already used for playback of content, You can maximize the sharing rate. In addition, by dynamically adjusting the size of the buffer that stores the pieces of the transmitted data stream according to the network conditions, the sharing rate can be prevented by maintaining synchronization between peers and between peers and servers, and the buffer size is increased dynamically. It is possible to keep the same size of the entire buffer by reducing (or increasing) the size of the buffer that buffers the pieces already used for content playback (or decrease) by the same size.

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.

1000: buffering system
1010: storage unit
1020: buffer size adjuster

Claims (16)

In a system for distributing an application,
Receive pieces of a data stream from a server providing a streaming service or at least one other peer receiving the streaming service and store the pieces of the data stream in a first buffer, and remove at least a portion of the pieces used for playing the content from among the stored pieces. And distribute an application running on the client to the client to store in a buffer. The method of claim 1,
And the pieces stored in the first buffer and the second buffer can be transmitted to at least one other client provided with the streaming service. The method of claim 1,
And the size of the first buffer is dynamically adjusted by the application according to network conditions. The method of claim 3,
The application may reduce the size of the second buffer by increasing the size of the first buffer or increase the size of the second buffer by decreasing the size of the first buffer to increase the size of the first buffer and the first buffer. And the size of the entire buffer, including the two buffers, remains the same. The method of claim 1,
The first buffer is a first area in which pieces received through the delivery server are stored by using progressive, a piece selection method for sequentially receiving pieces, by using the progressive from the at least one other client. The second area in which received pieces are stored and the pieces received from the at least one other client are stored using a rare first first which is a piece selection method for first receiving the rarest piece on the network. And a third region. The method of claim 5,
And the size of the first buffer is dynamically adjusted by the application according to a network situation. The method according to claim 3 or 6,
The network situation includes the download / upload speed at the client,
The size of the first buffer is dynamically adjusted by the application according to the download / upload speed. The method of claim 1,
The server includes a plurality of packetizing server,
The plurality of packetizing servers are classified into a primary packetizing server group and a secondary packetizing server group each including the same number of packetizing servers, so that the secondary packet tie server when the primary packetizing server group fails And a gong server group replaces the main packetizing server group. The method of claim 1,
The server includes a plurality of delivery server,
And the traffic is adjusted by adjusting the number of the plurality of delivery servers used according to the number of simultaneous accesses in the system providing the streaming service. Storing pieces of a data stream transmitted from a server providing a streaming service or at least one other peer receiving the streaming service in a first buffer; And
Storing at least a portion of the stored pieces used for reproduction of content in a second buffer
Including,
The pieces stored in the first buffer and the second buffer can be transmitted to at least one other peer receiving the streaming service. The method of claim 10,
Dynamically adjusting the size of the first buffer according to network conditions
The buffering method further comprises. The method of claim 11,
Dynamically adjusting,
Reducing the size of the second buffer by increasing the size of the first buffer or increasing the size of the second buffer by decreasing the size of the first buffer to keep the size of the entire buffer the same. step
A buffering method, characterized in that it comprises a. The method of claim 10,
The first buffer is a first area in which pieces received through the delivery server are stored using progressive, a piece selection method for sequentially receiving pieces, and pieces received using the progressive from the at least one other client. And a third area in which pieces received from the at least one other client are stored using a rare area first, which is a piece selection method for first receiving the rarest piece on the network. Buffering method. The method of claim 13,
And adjusting the size of the first buffer by adjusting the size of the third region according to a network situation. The method according to claim 11 or 14,
The network situation includes the download / upload speed at the peer,
And a size of the first buffer is dynamically adjusted according to the download / upload speed. A computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for performing the method of claim 10.

Images