Enhanced streaming services in a content distribution network

TLDR

Prism is an IP‑based CDN that provides high‑quality streaming media services by distributing, storing, and delivering content across servers close to consumers, with mechanisms for content naming, management, discovery, and redirection. The authors introduce the components of the Prism architecture. Prism’s architecture supports stored‑TV and network‑VCR services, allowing users to select content by program name and airtime, to store content within the network, and to access it globally across the Prism infrastructure. A user in the US can access European TV content both live and on‑demand through Prism.

Abstract

Prism's content naming, management, discovery, and redirection mechanisms support: high-quality streaming media services in an IP-based content distribution network. IP content distribution networks (CDNs) are special-purpose networks that provide scalability by distributing many servers across the Internet "close" to consumers. Prism (Portal infrastructure for Streaming Media) is a CDN architecture for: distributing, storing, and delivering high quality streaming media over IP networks. The Prism-based stored-TV (STV) service allows users to select content based on the program's name as well as the time it was aired. Content stored inside the network is accessible throughout the whole Prism infrastructure. For example, a user in the US can access European TV content both live and on-demand. Prism also allows users to specify content to be stored in a "network-VCR" type service. The authors introduce the components of the Prism architecture.