KR20140101177A - Apparatus for delivering contents/service using dynamic context - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed are an apparatus and a method for providing content/service using a dynamic context. The apparatus for providing the content/service comprises a context acquisition unit for collecting context information from at least one context providing apparatus, analyzing the collected context information, and then storing the analyzed context information; and a routing unit for receiving a content or service request message, selecting a content or service providing apparatus based on the analyzed context information, and routing the content or service request message provided to the content or service providing apparatus. Therefore, the present invention can select an optimal content providing server and thus, distribute a load and ensure to continuously provide the content/service.

Description

[0001] APPARATUS FOR DELIVERING CONTENTS [0002] BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003]

The present invention relates to a content transmission technology, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for providing a content / service using a dynamic context in a distributed network environment.

Although the performance of servers and computers has improved due to the development of the IT industry and the rapid increase of Internet users, the performance of the connection section between the networks has not been improved and bottlenecks have occurred on the network during content delivery, .

Content Delivery Network (CDN) technology is a technique for quickly delivering various contents or files to a user without disturbance in a distributed network environment.

Cache technology, Global Load Balancing (GLB) technology, Content Synchronization technology, Peer-to-Peer technology, etc. to improve content delivery quality in content delivery network technology Has been used.

In addition, ALTO (Application Traffic Optimization) technology and P4P (Proactive Network Provider Participation for P2P) technology are used as methods for optimizing the occurrence of traffic during content transmission.

1 is a network conceptual diagram for explaining a client-server model used in conventional traffic transmission.

Referring to FIG. 1, a network to which a client-server model is applied includes a plurality of networks 10, 20, and 30 connected to each other. Each network performs routing based on an IP address, And a plurality of IP-based routers 40 performing the function of delivering the IP-based packets.

In a general Internet environment configured as shown in FIG. 1, content delivery is performed based on a client-server model. That is, when the user (client) 50 requests the content, the content providing server 60 of the content provider (CP) that provides the content provides the requested content to the user 10 via the network.

On the other hand, in the content delivery structure based on the client-server model as shown in FIG. 1, the content demand of the user 10 is concentrated in the content server 60 providing the content, and the load of the content server 60 is increased , Increase in traffic of the server network) 61.

Also, when the content server 60 is located in a geographically distant place, not in the network of the same Internet service provider (ISP), or has a long distance or a high cost in terms of routing of the network, The traffic of the inter-operator Internet connection section 71 is increased and the backbone traffic 73 is increased, so that a transmission delay of contents occurs, thereby deteriorating the quality of contents usage.

In order to solve the above problems and to improve the quality of content transmission, a content provider (CP) has to distribute a large amount of contents concentrated in the web server of the content provider, A caching technique for transferring the content from a temporary storage (i.e., cache) stored in a network of an Internet service provider (ISP) is used when a user requests content have.

On the other hand, in order to improve the quality of content transmission through load balancing of the network, among a plurality of content servers distributed on a network of a plurality of Internet service providers (ISPs), a content server And a global load balancing (GLB) technique, which is a technique for connecting a service between a user and a content server, is also used.

In addition, a synchronization technique is also used in which, when a content is changed, the changed content information is instantly reflected in a server farm distributed for each Internet service provider so that users can receive the same contents at the same time.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) technology is a technology that allows users to share content stored in their own computers without intervention by a content relay server by utilizing computer performance and Internet connectivity. However, in the content sharing method using P2P, since there is no fixed content server for providing the contents, uniform quality of service can not be uniformly guaranteed, and illegal contents can be circulated.

The above-described caching technology, global load balancing technology, synchronization technology, and P2P technology have a disadvantage in that it is difficult to uniformly guarantee the quality of contents delivery because the ability to adapt to a context changing dynamically in an actual content delivery environment is poor have. For example, when a congestion occurs in a network path for delivering a content, an increase in the load of a server or storage for delivering the content, or an error occurs in the content server, When the above situation arises, the content is transmitted from the content server of the content provider to a complicated path such as a backbone network of Internet service providers (ISP), an Internet exchange (IX: Internet eXchange) To the user, or an unacceptable delay in content delivery may occur.

As described above, in an application program such as P2P or a content server providing content, the service quality deteriorates due to not considering the information of the dynamically changing network and the selection of the peer node that provides the content In order to prevent unnecessary network traffic caused by not taking into consideration network information, a traffic localization technique that allows contents to be delivered from an optimal peer by selecting a peer optimized for content delivery considering characteristics of various networks I am interested.

As a representative method of traffic localization technology, there is ALTO technology which is promoting standardization in the application traffic optimization (ALTO) working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

ALTO technology is a method of improving the performance of an application by collecting and analyzing network routing information and selecting a peer with a minimum network cost (or minimum hop). However, since the network information used in the ALTO technology is information that can be acquired only by the Internet service provider (ISP), there is a problem that the ALTO technology can not be practically used without cooperation of the Internet service provider (ISP).

P4P technology, which is another traffic localization technology, is a technology that is being developed by the Internet service provider as a mainstay. It establishes a server for managing network information in the Internet service provider and transmits the service to the Internet service provider's network We use a method to realize localization of traffic by sharing information.

However, the ALTO technology and the P4P technology only focus on the method of collecting the network context and optimizing the traffic by providing the gathered context information, The best context / service delivery can not be considered because context elements, such as the context of the server providing the dynamically changing content / service, the context of the terminal using the content / service, the context associated with the user, There is a disadvantage that the quality can not be substantially provided.

It is an object of the present invention to overcome the above-described problems and to provide a method and apparatus for improving end-to-end delivery quality of a content or a service and a content using a dynamic context capable of optimizing traffic generation / Service providing apparatus.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of providing a content / service using a dynamic context that can improve the end-to-end quality of a content or service and optimize traffic generation when providing the content or service.

The objects of the present invention are not limited to the above-mentioned objects, and other objects and advantages of the present invention which are not mentioned can be understood by the following description, and will be more clearly understood by the embodiments of the present invention. It will also be readily apparent that the objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for providing a content / service using a dynamic context, the apparatus comprising: at least one context providing device for collecting context information; A context acquisition unit for analyzing context information and a content or service request message, and selecting a content or a service providing apparatus based on the analyzed context information and transmitting the provided content or service request to the selected content or service providing apparatus And a context-aware routing unit for routing.

Here, the context acquisition unit may collect at least one of content, service provision related information, user related information, network related information, and user terminal related information from the at least one context providing devices. In addition, the user-related information may include at least one of an IP address, an actual location of the user, a preference of the user, and accessibility information as information related to a user using the content or service. The content or service providing related information is service related information that may affect the quality of delivering the content or service. The service related information may include at least one of a service type, a content type, a fee, a service provider, a content provider, The number of sessions, the load information, the average service time, and the content ranking information.

Here, the context acquisition unit may define a policy for collecting context information, and may distribute the defined context collection policy to the at least one context providing device. Also, the context acquisition unit may define at least one of a context providing apparatus for collecting a context, a context collection method, a protocol used for context collection, and a time for context collection to collect the context information.

Here, the context acquisition unit may provide an interface through which the context providing apparatus can register with the network, and may extract context information from the data received from the at least one context providing apparatus. The context acquisition unit may define a context model based on a relationship between context information types to be acquired, convert the received data into context information corresponding to the defined context model, Can be converted into predefined higher level information.

The content / service providing apparatus may further include a context sharing unit for providing an interface for allowing the external device to access the analyzed context information. In addition, the context sharing unit performs authentication, authorization or accounting of the external device, and can transmit context information to a permitted external device through a predefined method.

Here, the context aware routing unit may receive the content or service request message, extract information for selecting the content or service providing apparatus from the received request message, and may extract the extracted information and the analyzed context information The content or service providing apparatus can be selected based on the content or service providing apparatus. In addition, the context aware routing unit may extract at least one information such as an IP address, a content ID, a service ID, terminal information that transmitted the request message, content or service provider information, and a request option from the received request message. In addition, the context aware routing unit may select the optimal network path for providing the selected content or service from the selected content or service providing apparatus based on the extracted information and the analyzed context information, Reservation of resources can be performed. In addition, the context aware routing unit may route the provided content or service request to the selected content or service providing device, and then store the routing result.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of providing a content / service using a dynamic context, the method comprising: providing at least one contextual service A step of analyzing the collected context information and storing the analyzed context information, a step of extracting context information from the content or service providing apparatus, based on the analyzed context information corresponding to the received content or service request message, And routing the provided content or service request to the selected content or service providing apparatus.

The collecting of the context information from the at least one context providing device may include collecting at least one context providing information, user related information, network related information, and user terminal related information from the at least one context providing device, Can be collected.

Herein, the step of analyzing the collected context information and storing the analyzed context information may include analyzing the collected context information, converting the analyzed context information into a predetermined high level information, It is possible to store information at a higher level.

Here, the step of selecting a content or a service providing apparatus based on the analyzed context information corresponding to the received content or service request message may include selecting the content or the service providing apparatus from the received content or service request message Extracting context information of the user terminal for the user terminal, and selecting the content or service providing apparatus based on the context information of the user terminal and the analyzed context information. Here, the extracting of the context information of the user terminal may include extracting the context information of the user terminal from the received content or service request message including the IP address of the user terminal, the content ID, the service ID, the terminal information transmitting the request message, And a weight option of the content or the service providing apparatus.

Here, the step of selecting a content or a service providing apparatus based on the context information of the user terminal and the analyzed context information may include a step of, when cache information corresponding to the extracted context information of the user terminal exists, The content or the service providing apparatus can be selected.

The step of selecting a content or a service providing apparatus based on the context information of the user terminal and the analyzed context information may further include the step of, when there is no cache information corresponding to the context information of the extracted user terminal, The content providing apparatus can select the content or the service providing apparatus based on the content included in the context information of the service providing apparatus or the weight option information of the service providing apparatus and the analyzed context information.

Here, the content / service providing method may further include the step of routing the content or service request provided to the selected content or the service providing apparatus, and then storing the routing information in a cache.

According to the apparatus and method for providing a content / service using the dynamic context as described above, the load of the server that provides the content is dynamically collected and the optimum content providing server is selected based on the collected information, Can be dispersed.

In addition, when a failure occurs in the content providing server, it is possible to avoid the trouble of the content providing server by selecting another content providing server capable of providing the content based on the failure information dynamically collected and providing the content, Thereby ensuring continuity of content or service provision.

Also, by selecting an optimal server among the servers adjacent to the user who requested the content or service, the routing path of the traffic can be shortened and the transmission delay can be minimized, thereby improving the transmission quality of the content or service. In addition, by selecting a server caching content optimized for a user or a user terminal by considering various context information such as a load route, a failure status, or a user's preference, as well as a routing path, Can be provided.

In addition, by providing contents or services at the shortest distance from the user who requested the contents or service and providing the contents or service at the optimum contents providing server, it is possible to localize the traffic and reduce the network traffic and Internet exchange (IX: Internet eXchange) traffic have.

1 is a network conceptual diagram for explaining a client-server model used in conventional traffic transmission.
2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a content / service providing system using a dynamic context according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a more detailed view of the context type collected by the content / service providing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 4 illustrates a context information collection policy managed by a content / service providing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 is a flowchart illustrating a context collection and analysis method among a method of providing a content / service using a dynamic context according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 6 is an exemplary diagram for explaining the context collection and analysis method shown in FIG. 5. FIG.
7 is a flowchart illustrating a method of providing a content / service using a dynamic context according to an embodiment of the present invention.
8 is a flowchart illustrating a content / service providing method according to an embodiment of the present invention.
9 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a distributed network environment to which a content / service providing method according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.

While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail.

It should be understood, however, that the invention is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments, but includes all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention.

The terminology used in this application is used only to describe a specific embodiment and is not intended to limit the invention. The singular expressions include plural expressions unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. In the present application, the terms "comprises" or "having" and the like are used to specify that there is a feature, a number, a step, an operation, an element, a component or a combination thereof described in the specification, But do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, or combinations thereof.

Unless defined otherwise, all terms used herein, including technical or scientific terms, have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. Terms such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries should be interpreted as having a meaning consistent with the meaning in the context of the relevant art and are to be interpreted in an ideal or overly formal sense unless explicitly defined in the present application Do not.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In order to facilitate the understanding of the present invention, the same reference numerals are used for the same constituent elements in the drawings and redundant explanations for the same constituent elements are omitted.

2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a content / service providing system using a dynamic context according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, a content / service providing system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a context providing apparatus 100 for providing various contexts, A content / service providing apparatus 200 for selecting a content or a service providing server, and a context using apparatus 300 using the analyzed context information.

The context providing apparatus 100 is an apparatus for periodically or dynamically providing context information and may be a device for providing context information such as a network, a service, a terminal, an Operational Support System (OSS) or a Network Management System (NMS) And the like.

For example, the context providing apparatus 100 may be configured as a content server, a service server, and the like, and may provide context information related to the service.

The context providing apparatus 100 may be configured as an operation support system (OSS), a network management system (NMS), or a business support system (BSS), and may provide context information related to a user .

In addition, the context providing device 100 may be configured as a network device such as a router, a switch, and the like, and may provide context information related to the network.

In addition, the context providing apparatus 100 may be configured as a user terminal such as a smart phone, a padded terminal, a computer, and the like. In this case, the context providing apparatus 100 may provide context information related to the user terminal .

As described above, the context providing apparatus 100 may be configured such that a plurality of apparatuses having various types are distributed in a network, and may provide various types of context information to the contents / service providing apparatus 200.

The content / service providing apparatus 200 performs a context-aware routing function based on various types of context information collected from the context providing apparatus 100.

Specifically, the content / service providing apparatus 200 includes a context collecting unit 210, a context analyzing unit 230, a context sharing unit 250, a context aware routing unit 270, and a context storing unit 290 .

The context collecting unit 210 collects various types of context information from various types of context providing apparatuses 100 distributed in the network and provides the collected context information to the context analyzing unit 230. [ Here, the context collector 210 may store the collected context information in the context storage unit 290.

The context analyzing unit 230 analyzes the context information provided from the context collecting unit 210 and converts the analyzed context information into a form that can be used by the context sharing unit 250 and the context aware routing unit 270 , And provides the converted information to the context sharing unit (250) and / or the context aware routing unit (270). For example, the context analyzer 230 analyzes the provided context information, processes the analyzed context information into ranking information of a specific item or information included in a predetermined ranking, and transmits the context information to the context sharing unit 250 And / or the context aware routing unit 270. In addition, the context analyzer 230 may store the context information in which the analysis or format conversion is performed in the context storage unit 290.

The context sharing unit 250 provides a common interface so that the context-using device 300 can easily access and use the context information.

The context aware routing unit 270 receives the context information from which the analysis and formatting are converted (or processed) from the context analyzing unit 230 and receives the context information based on the context information And routes the user's request to the selected content providing server and / or route.

The context storage unit 290 may store the context information provided from the context collection unit 210. [ Also, the context storage unit 290 may store the analyzed or converted context information provided from the context analysis unit 230.

The context-aware device 300 may be a user terminal capable of digital information processing, such as a computer, and requests content or service delivery to the content / service providing device 200.

In addition, the context-aware device 300 may include an application program that can be installed and executed in an information processing apparatus such as a computer, and a web application operating in a browser control environment. The context-aware device 300 may send a content or service delivery request to the content / service delivery device 200 in response to a user's application or use of the web application and may receive context information from the content / And / or information on the contents / service providing server.

FIG. 3 is a more detailed view of the context type collected by the content / service providing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 3, the context type collected by the content / service provision apparatus 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention may include information such as a service, a user, a network, and a terminal related context.

First, the service-related context information can be divided into static context information and dynamic context information as service-related information that may affect the quality of delivering a content or a service.

The static service related context information may include information such as a service category, a content category, a fee, a service provider, a content provider, and a quality of service (QoS).

The dynamic service related context information may include information such as a content cache list, a session count, a load ratio, an average service time, a content ranking, and the like.

The user context information may include information related to the user who uses the content or the service, and may include information such as the IP address of the user (or the user terminal), the actual location of the user, the preference of the user,

The network-related context information is network-related information that may affect the quality of contents or service delivery. The network-related context information may include a type of network (e.g., wired, wireless, WCDMA, WiBro, BGP: Border Gateway Protocol), network failure, network construction, and the like.

The context information related to the terminal is information related to a terminal that requests or receives or displays a content or a service. The information includes hardware capabilities (e.g., model information, screen size, input / output format) An operating system, and a mobile platform), a terminal status (e.g. RSS (Received Signal Strength), a battery output, a memory usage rate, a CPU status, a hard disk usage rate, and the like).

Hereinafter, the function of each component of the content / service providing apparatus shown in FIG. 2 will be described in more detail.

The context collecting unit 210 collects various types of context information provided from the distributed context providing apparatuses 100 and provides the collected context information to the context analyzing unit 230.

Specifically, the context collector 210 performs a policy management function that defines a policy for context collection such as context-providing device selection, context collection method determination, context collection protocol, and context collection time period.

In addition, the context collector 210 may provide an interface for network registration of any context providing device when it is necessary for any context providing device to register with the network.

Here, the context providing device may be a device that provides a context periodically or dynamically and may be configured as a network, a service, a terminal, an operation support system (OSS), a network management system (NMS) It is possible to select at least one context providing apparatus from among the context providing apparatuses to collect the context.

Further, the context collection method relates to the selection of a method of collecting context information from the context providing apparatus, and can be selected from methods such as event based, request / response, polling, and the like. The polling-based context collection method is a method in which the context collection unit 210 actively collects context information from context providing apparatuses, and an event-driven based context collection method applies a context collection policy to provide a context And the context information is automatically provided to the context collecting unit 210 when the device periodically provides context information or a preset event occurs. The context acquisition method based on a request / response (Request / Response) is a method in which when the context collection unit 210 determines that context collection is required, it requests context information from the corresponding context providing apparatus and receives context information from the context providing apparatus It is the method provided.

The context collection protocol is a protocol used for collecting context information, which can be determined through an appointment with the context providing devices, and includes a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), a File Transfer Protocol (FTP), a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) A known protocol such as BGP may be used.

The context collection unit 210 collects the time period from the context providing apparatus according to the type of the context information, the context providing apparatus, the context collection method, the context collection protocol, and the like. And can periodically check the context time period.

FIG. 4 illustrates a context information collection policy managed by a content / service providing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 4, the context collector 210 of the content / service management server according to an embodiment of the present invention collects context information such as a context providing device, a context collection method and a policy .

On the other hand, when the policy for context collection is determined as described above, the context collection unit 210 distributes the determined context collection policy information to the context providing apparatuses. Here, the distribution of the context collection policy may be distributed through a method capable of ensuring security and reliability, and each of the context providing apparatuses receiving the context collection policy information may receive the context collection policy information from the context collection unit 210).

In addition, the context collector 210 performs a function of receiving context information transmitted from the context providing devices. That is, the context collector 210 understands the protocol to collect the context from each context providing device, and extracts the basic context information when the context data is received from the context providing device.

The context analyzing unit 230 analyzes the received context data and converts the analyzed context data into meaningful information. The context analyzing unit 230 may include a context model managing module, a context information transform / filter module, and a context analyzing module have.

Specifically, the context analyzer 230 performs a context model management function that defines a relation or dependency between context information types that should be obtained in order to guarantee correct operation of the context requestor. If the context information model is well designed, the availability of the context information used by the context requestors can be increased. In addition, the context model is very important because it requires not only a formalized representation of the context information in the context model but also a proper reasoning about the context data, in order to check the consistency of the context.

In addition, the context analyzer 230 removes unnecessary information from the received context data, converts the context data from which unnecessary information has been removed into basic context information corresponding to the defined context model, and then transmits the converted basic context information to the context And stores it in the storage unit 290.

In addition, the context analyzing unit 230 performs a context analysis function for changing the basic context information to higher-level information such as ranking through inference and differentiation. That is, the context information collected from the various context providing apparatuses 100 having different levels of expression needs to be interpreted before being used. For this reason, the context analyzing unit 230 uses the basic context information as upper level information Conversion. The changed upper level information is used by the context requestor to select an optimal source (e.g., a content providing server or a service providing server) for content or service delivery.

The context sharing unit 250 provides a common interface for an external user to access the context information stored in the context storage unit 290. [ For example, when a context requestor calls an interface using appropriate parameters and authentication information at a remote site, the context sharing unit 250 performs necessary operations based on the received parameters, and then provides the operation result to the context requestor .

In addition, the context sharing unit 250 performs a security function for protecting context information from unauthorized access or use. Here, the context sharing unit 250 may use functions such as authentication, authorization, and billing to ensure compliance with the security requirements.

Also, the context sharing unit 250 performs a context information transfer function such as a context request / response, a context subscription / notification, and the like. Such a context delivery method may be predefined between the context sharing unit 250 and the context requestor.

The context aware routing unit 270 receives the requested content or service delivery request from the user and provides routing path information for content or service delivery to the optimal content or service provision device based on the collected context information. Here, the routing path information means service routing path information that determines which node (or content / service providing server) is closest to the user terminal in the adjacency dimension of the network and which node has the optimal resource status .

Specifically, the context aware routing unit 270 is capable of receiving a content or service request from a user and understanding an application protocol for the content or service request for this purpose. The application protocol used in the service request may be a protocol such as HTTP, Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTT) / Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), Real Time Transport Protocol (RTP), Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) The aware routing unit 270 understands such protocols and receives a content or service request transmitted from the user terminal.

When the context-aware routing unit 270 receives a request message from a user instructing a content or service request, the context-aware routing unit 270 transmits an IP address, a content / service ID, user terminal information, content / service provider information, and request options from the received request message.

In addition, the context aware routing unit 270 combines available context information, such as network, terminal, service, and user context information, to generate content contexts from a number of content / service sources (or content / And selects the optimal source. For example, the context aware routing unit 270 combines a plurality of context information by simply multiplying the weight and context ranking by the options extracted from the received request message, Can be selected.

In addition, the context aware routing unit 270 selects an optimal network path from a plurality of network paths to provide contents / services, and transmits network resources such as QoS priority, network bandwidth, To ensure end-to-end delivery quality.

The context aware routing unit 270 selects an optimal content / service source (or content / service provision server) and an optimal network path according to a user's content / service request as described above, To the source and the selected path. Here, the user's request message is delivered to the selected content / service source without user intervention.

The context aware routing unit 270 retransmits the user's request message to the selected content / service source and then stores the routing results in a cache for improved routing performance.

Hereinafter, a method of providing a content / service using a dynamic context according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a context collection and analysis method among a method of providing a content / service using a dynamic context according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 6 is an exemplary diagram for explaining the context collection and analysis method shown in FIG. 5. FIG.

Referring to FIGS. 5 and 6, the content / service provision apparatus collects context data provided from various context providing devices distributed in the network (S501). Here, the plurality of context providing devices may transmit the context data to the contents / service providing device based on the context collection policy distributed from the contents / service providing device. In addition, the type of the context data to be collected may include service, user, network, and terminal related context information as shown in FIG. For example, the content / service provision apparatus may collect routing information that is dynamically changed, such as IGP, BGP, etc., from at least one router, and may receive a cache list, Number of services, average service time, and so on.

Thereafter, the contents / service providing apparatus analyzes the collected context data (S503). Here, the content / service providing apparatus 200 removes unnecessary data from the context data collected from the context, and then converts the context data from which unnecessary data has been removed into basic context information corresponding to a predefined context model, Information can be stored.

After that, the content / service providing device 200 converts the basic context information into high-level information such as rankings and then stores the converted high-level context information. Here, the content / service providing device 200 may convert the analyzed base context information into higher level information of a method of summarizing the analyzed basic context information with the abstracted context information desired by the user.

For example, the content / service providing device 200 analyzes network-related context data and service-related context data collected as shown in FIG. 6, abstracts the analyzed context information, and provides network context ranking information and service context ranking Information.

6, in the network context ranking information, the ranking order is set in the order of the content source # 1, the content source # 3, and the content source # 2. However, since the content source # 1 is overloaded with the service session excessively, The content source # 1 and the content source # 3 have a lower service context ranking ranking, and the content source # 3 occupies the highest ranking.

Meanwhile, the context collection and analysis method as shown in FIG. 5 can be repeatedly performed based on the predefined context collection policy as described above, and when a user's content or service request occurs, Lt; / RTI > is used to select a provisioning server and / or a network path.

7 is a flowchart illustrating a method of providing a content / service using a dynamic context according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 7, the content / service providing apparatus 730 collects context information from the various context providing apparatuses 740 to 770 and analyzes the collected context information as described in detail with reference to FIG. 5 (S701 ). 7, the network and service context information is collected from the network 740 and the plurality of content providing servers 750, 760, and 770, and the analysis result of the collected context indicates that the content providing server # 1 750 is in an overload state, The providing server # 3 770 has been shown, for example, as having a failure.

When the user 710 transmits a content request message to the contents provider 720 in step S703, the contents provider 720 transmits information of the contents / service providing apparatus 730 in response to the request of the user To the user 710 (S705). Here, the content provider can redeliver the content request message of the user using the domain name.

Accordingly, the user 710 delivers the content request message to the content / service providing apparatus 730 (S707).

The content / service providing device 200 extracts context information related to the user terminal from the content request message of the user (S709). Here, the information related to the user terminal may include information such as a terminal type, an operating system (OS) type, and a terminal display size.

In step S711, the content / service providing apparatus 730 selects an optimal content providing server to deliver the content to the user 710 based on the context information collected and analyzed in step S701. In FIG. 7, since the content providing server # 1 750 is in an overload state and the content providing server # 3 770 is assumed to have a failure, the content providing server # 2 760 can be selected.

Then, the content / service providing apparatus 730 delivers the information of the selected content providing apparatus (i.e., the content providing server # 2) to the user 710 (S713).

The user 710 retransmits the content request message to the content providing server # 2 760 (S715) based on the information of the content providing apparatus received from the content / service providing apparatus 730, 760) (S717).

8 is a flowchart illustrating a content / service providing method according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 8, the context-based optimal content providing server selecting process performed by the content / will be.

Referring to FIG. 8, the content / service providing apparatus 200 receives the content delivery request message of the user (S801) and extracts the context information of the user terminal from the received content delivery request message (S803). Here, the context information of the user terminal extracted from the content delivery request message includes IP address information of the user terminal, ID information of the content requested by the user, information of the user terminal, provider information of the content requested by the user, Information.

Thereafter, the content / service providing device 200 determines whether caching information corresponding to the content request message of the user exists based on the extracted context information of the user terminal (S805).

If there is information corresponding to the user's content request message in the cache, the content / service providing apparatus 200 obtains the information of the content providing server from the caching information and determines whether a failure occurs in the content providing server (S807) . If it is determined that a failure has occurred in the content providing server, the content / service providing device 200 deletes the caching information (S809). Or if it is determined that the failure has not occurred in the content providing server, the content / service providing apparatus 200 reserves a resource for delivering the content to the network and / or the server (S825) The request message is retransmitted (S827).

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S805 that the information corresponding to the user's content request message does not exist in the cache, the content / service providing apparatus 200 determines whether the server selection weight option extracted from the user's content delivery request message is 'default' (S811). Here, the weight option may be expressed as a percentage, and may be set for each context information type. For example, weights w1, w2, w3, and w4 may be set for each of context, network, service, user, and terminal related context information, respectively. In addition, when the server selection weighting option is set as a default, the content / service providing apparatus 200 can be configured to select an optimum content providing server according to a predefined criterion.

If it is determined in step S811 that the server selection weighting option is set as the default, the content / service providing device 200 inquires the network context ranking (S813). After excluding the content providing server in which the failure has occurred from the inquired network context ranking list (S815), and determines an optimal content providing server from the ranking list excluding the failed content providing server (S823).

Alternatively, if the result server selection weighting option determined in step S811 is not set as the default, the content / service providing device 200 inquires the ranking according to the context information type (S817). Here, the context information type may include the network R1, the service R2, the user R3, and the UE-related context information R4.

Thereafter, the content / service providing device 200 calculates the ranking by applying a weight value set for each context information type to each context information after excluding a content providing server that has failed in the ranked ranking list for each context information type (S819) ). For example, the content / service providing apparatus 200 can recalculate the rankings in the same way as w1? R1 + w2? R2 + w3? R3 + w4? R4.

The content / service providing apparatus 200 determines an optimal server based on the ranking calculated again by applying the weights as described above (S823). Here, the content / service providing apparatus 200 may determine the content providing server having the highest ranking among the ranking lists as the optimum content providing server.

Thereafter, the content / service providing apparatus 200 reserves resources for delivering the content to the network and / or the server (S825), and retransmits the content delivery request message of the user to the content providing server (S827).

After the content / service providing apparatus 200 re-transmits the content delivery request message of the user to the content providing server, the content / service providing apparatus 200 stores the request result in the cache (S829).

9 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a distributed network environment to which a content / service providing method according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.

9, a content / service providing method according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a plurality of content providing servers 940 that are distributed and located in networks 910, 920, and 930 to store and provide content, May be executed in an environment having a context aware router 950 that collects, analyzes, and shares context information of the type, and performs context based routing. Here, the context aware router 950 corresponds to the content / service providing apparatus 200 shown in FIG. 2, and executes the above-described content / service providing method.

According to the content / service provision apparatus 200 and method according to an embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to distribute the load concentrated on the content source 901 providing the content as shown in FIG. 9, The traffic of the Internet access section between the Internet service providers can be reduced.

Meanwhile, an apparatus and method for providing a content / service using a dynamic context according to an embodiment of the present invention as described above may be implemented as a program command that can be executed through various computing means capable of digital information processing, Lt; / RTI > The computer-readable medium may include program instructions, data files, data structures, and the like, 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. Examples of computer-readable media include magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks and magnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROMs and DVDs; magnetic media such as floppy disks; Magneto-optical media, and hardware devices specifically configured to store and execute program instructions such as ROM, RAM, flash memory, and the like. The medium may be a transmission medium such as an optical or metal line, a wave guide, or the like, including a carrier wave for transmitting a signal designating a program command, a data structure, or the like. Examples of program instructions include machine language code such as those generated by a compiler, as well as high-level language code that can be executed by a computer using an interpreter or the like. The hardware device may be configured to operate as one or more software modules to perform the operations of the present invention, and vice versa.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. It will be possible.

10, 20, 30: Network 40: IP-based router
50: user 60: content providing server
100: Context providing apparatus 200: Content / service providing apparatus
210: Context collection unit 230: Context analysis unit
250: Context sharing unit 270: Context aware routing unit
290: Context storage unit 300: Context-used device
710: User 720: Content provider
730: Content / Service Providing Device 740: Network
750: Content providing server # 1 760: Content providing server # 2
770: Content providing server # 3 901: Content source
910, 920, 930: network 940: content providing server
950: Context aware router

Claims (22)

A context acquisition unit for collecting context information from at least one context providing device, analyzing the collected context information, and storing the analyzed context information; And
A context / routing unit for receiving a content or service request message, selecting a content or service providing apparatus based on the analyzed context information, and routing the provided content or service request to the selected content or service providing apparatus; . The method according to claim 1,
The context acquisition unit
Wherein at least one of the content or service provision related information, the user related information, the network related information, and the user terminal related information is collected from the at least one context providing devices. The method of claim 2,
Wherein the user-related information includes at least one of an IP address, an actual location of a user, a preference of a user, and accessibility information as information related to a user using the content or service. The method of claim 2,
The content or service providing related information is service related information that may affect the quality of delivering the content or service. The information includes service type, content type, fee, service provider, content provider, service quality information, , The load information, the average service time, and the content ranking information. The method according to claim 1,
The context acquisition unit
A policy for collecting context information is defined, and a defined context collection policy is distributed to the at least one context providing device. The method of claim 5,
The context acquisition unit
Wherein the context management unit defines at least one of a context providing apparatus for collecting a context, a context collection method, a protocol used for context collection, and a time for context collection as a policy for collecting the context information. The method according to claim 1,
The context acquisition unit
Wherein the context providing apparatus provides an interface for registering with the network and extracts context information from data received from the at least one context providing apparatus. The method of claim 7,
The context acquisition unit
A context model is defined based on a relationship between context information types to be acquired, the received data is converted into context information corresponding to the defined context model, and then the converted context information is converted into a predetermined upper level To the information of the content / service providing apparatus. The method according to claim 1,
The content / service providing apparatus
And a context sharing unit for providing an interface for allowing the external device to access the analyzed context information. The method of claim 9,
The context sharing unit
Performs authentication, authorization or accounting of the external device, and delivers the context information to a permitted external device through a predefined method. The method according to claim 1,
The context aware routing unit
Extracting information for selecting the content or service providing apparatus from the received request message, selecting the content or service providing apparatus based on the extracted information and the analyzed context information, The content service providing apparatus comprising: The method of claim 11,
The context aware routing unit
And extracts from the received request message at least one information such as an IP address, a content ID, a service ID, a terminal information transmitting the request message, a content or a service provider information, and a request option. The method of claim 11,
The context aware routing unit
Wherein the selected content or service providing apparatus selects an optimal network route for providing a content or a service based on the extracted information and the analyzed context information and reserves network resources based on the selected network route / RTI > The method of claim 11,
The context aware routing unit
Wherein the routing unit stores the routing result after routing the provided content or service request to the selected content or service providing apparatus. A content / service providing method performed by a content / service providing apparatus,
Collecting context information from at least one context providing device;
Analyzing the collected context information and storing the analyzed context information;
Selecting a content or service providing apparatus based on the analyzed context information in accordance with the received content or service request message; And
And routing the provided content or service request to the selected content or service providing device. 16. The method of claim 15,
Wherein the collecting of context information from the at least one context providing device comprises:
Wherein at least one information is collected from the at least one context providing device, the at least one content providing service providing related information, the user related information, the network related information, and the user terminal related information. 16. The method of claim 15,
Analyzing the collected context information, and storing the analyzed context information,
Analyzing the collected context information, converting the analyzed context information into predefined high-level information, and storing the converted high-level information. 16. The method of claim 15,
The step of selecting a content or a service providing apparatus based on the analyzed context information, corresponding to the received content or service request message,
Extracting context information of a user terminal for selecting the content or service providing apparatus from the received content or service request message; And
And selecting the content or service providing apparatus based on the context information of the user terminal and the analyzed context information. 19. The method of claim 18,
The step of extracting the context information of the user terminal comprises:
From the received content or service request message, at least one of an IP address, a content ID, a service ID, a terminal information that transmitted the request message, content or service provider information, and a weight option of the content or service providing apparatus And extracting the content / service. 19. The method of claim 18,
Wherein the selecting of the content or service providing apparatus based on the context information of the user terminal and the analyzed context information comprises:
And if the cache information corresponding to the extracted context information of the user terminal exists, selects the content or the service providing apparatus based on the cache information. 19. The method of claim 18,
Wherein the selecting of the content or the service providing apparatus based on the context information of the user terminal and the analyzed context information comprises:
When there is no cache information corresponding to the context information of the extracted user terminal, based on the content option information included in the context information of the extracted user terminal or the weight option information of the service providing device and the analyzed context information, / RTI > is selected. ≪ / RTI > 16. The method of claim 15,
The method of providing content /
Further comprising routing the content or service request to the selected content or service providing device, and then storing the routing information in a cache.

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