Abstract: A network firewall detects and protects against persistent low volume attacks based on a sequence of network data having a pattern that matches by some threshold or percentage a sequence of network data from an earlier iteration of the same persistent low volume attack. The attack patterns are derived from tokenizing one or more elements from a captured sequence of network data that is representative of an attack iteration. Counts for different resulting tokens may be stored in a feature vector that represents the attack pattern. If subsequent sequences of network data have a sufficient number of similar token, a pattern match can be identified and the firewall can take protective action including blacklisting the sending clients, blocking the traffic, redirecting the traffic, sending a problem to verify the sender is an actual user, or other actions.

Abstract: A Multi-Threaded Indexed (“MTI”) file system may use a first set of threads, processes, or executable instances to index desired file attributes in a database while simultaneously but independently executing file operations with a second set of threads, processes, or executable instances. In response to receiving a file operation, the second set of threads, processes, or executable instance may query the database to directly identify files that are indirectly implicated by the file operation with a wildcard, regular expression, and/or other expression that indirectly identifies the files based on different file attributes, paths, name expressions, or combinations thereof. The second set of threads, processes, or executable instances are therefore able to identify the files implicated by the file operation based solely on the indexed file attributes already entered in the database without the need to load and scan the metadata of files in directories targeted by the file operation.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed that generally relate to content delivery techniques in audio-visual systems. In an audio-visual system, a method of using sensors to incrementally present content elements on a display includes presenting a first content element on the display, receiving first data from a sensor, the first data associated with a first distance. An increment coefficient is identified, and a portion size is determined by reducing the first distance by the increment coefficient. Finally, an unseen portion of a second content element is incrementally added to the display, and a presented portion of the first content element is incrementally removed from the display, the size of the portions added and removed being equal to the determined portion size.

Abstract: The embodiments provide request multiplexing whereby a server receiving a first request for content clones and issues the cloned request to an origin to initiate retrieval of the content. The first request and subsequent requests for the same content are placed in a queue. The server empties a receive buffer that is populated with packets of the requested content as the packets arrive from the origin by writing the packets directly to local storage without directly distributing packets from the receive buffer to any user. The rate at which the server empties the receive buffer is therefore independent of the rate at which any user receives the packets. A first set of packets written to local storage can then be simultaneously distributed to one or more queued requests as the server continues emptying the receive buffer and writing a second set of packets to local storage.

Abstract: Disclosed is a dynamically adaptable stream segment prefetcher for prefetching stream segments from different media streams with different segment name formats and with different positioning of the segment name iterator within the differing segment name formats. In response to receiving a client issued request for a particular segment of a particular media stream, the prefetcher identifies the segment name format and iterator location using a regular expression matching to the client issued request. The prefetcher then generates prefetch requests based on the segment name format and incrementing a current value for the iterator in the segment name of the client issued request.

Abstract: Streaming improvements are provided by using computing, caching, and/or other resources that are provided at different network edges in a Multi-access Edge Computing (“MEC”) enhanced network. A MEC device, at a network edge, may customize a stream passing to a client device via the network edge by identifying a break in an original stream manifest passing to the client device, and by inserting a link for the client device to request and play content that is selected by the MEC device during the break. The MEC device then passes the modified stream manifest, instead of the original stream manifest, to the client device. The MEC device may also be triggered, via a prioritization message from a host in the network, to prefetch, cache, and serve a stream from the network edge to a client device accessing the network via that network edge.

Abstract: A controller provides dynamic load distribution in a multi-tier distributed platform. The controller may receive a request at a first Point-of-Presence (“PoP”) with a first set of resources. The first PoP may be part of a distributed platform with several distributed PoPs at different network locations. The controller may classify the requested task with a priority, may determine resource availability, and may dynamically distribute the request by (i) providing the request to the first set of resources in response to classifying the task with a high first priority, and determining the availability of the first set of resources to be less than a threshold, and (ii) providing the request to a second PoP in response to classifying the task with a lower second priority, and determining the availability of the first set of resources to be less than the threshold.

Abstract: Server assisted live stream failover involves detecting a manifest of a stream provided by a first source exceeding a staleness quotient before the stream ends, and initiating or triggering failover of the stream from the first source to a second source in response to detecting the stale manifest. A server initiates the failover on behalf of a client, wherein the client requests objects (i.e., manifests and segments) of the stream, the server distributes those objects from at least the first source to the client, and the server detects that a particular requested object has become stale past a staleness quotient. The server indirectly redirects a client from a first source to a second source by passing a message with a 4xx or 5xx code to the client in place of a message with a 3xx code provided by the first source.

Abstract: Dynamic caching policies and/or dynamic purging policies are provided for modifying the entry and eviction of content to the cache (e.g., storage and/or memory) of a caching server based on the current and past cache performance and/or demand. The caching server may modify or replace a configured policy when cache performance is below one or more thresholds. Modifying the caching policy may change caching behavior of the caching server by changing the conditions that control the content that is entered into cache or the content that is deferred and not entered into cache after a request. This may include assigning different probabilities for entering the same content into cache based on different caching policies. Modifying the purging policy may change eviction behavior of the caching server by changing the conditions that control the cached content that is selected and removed from cache.

Abstract: An Edge Compute Network (“ECN”) may provide compute devices with configurable compute resources at different network edges for selective localized and low latency execution of user-defined operations. A user may provide a set of operations in any of several supported programming languages, and the ECN may create an executable environment that can execute the set of operations using the compute resources of any ECN compute device. A function manager for a compute device may selectively initialize, based on requests to execute the set of operations and an initialization policy, the executable environment so that the set of operations can be directly executed using the compute resources of that compute device upon request. The function manager may also selectively remove initialized executable environments based on compute device resource utilization, executable environment usage, and a removal policy.

Abstract: Provided is a device that persistently distributes connectionless traffic across different simultaneously executing server instances in a manner that allows a first set of server instances of the device to commence a new first set of connectionless data streams during a first interval, and a different second set of server instances of the device to commence a different second set of connectionless data streams as the first set of server instances respond to ongoing connectionless data streams of the first set of connectionless data streams during a subsequent second interval. The persistent distribution further supports virtual connection migration by distributing, to the same server instance, data packets that are directed to the same connectionless data stream even when the sending user equipment changes addressing during the connectionless data stream.

Abstract: A server distributing a stream to a client device may use server-side metrics to detect issues that interrupt or otherwise affect playback of the stream by the client device. The server reproduces the issues experienced by the client device from the server-side metrics without accessing or using client-side metrics. The server-side metrics may include data that may be produced or obtained by the server such as requested stream segment filenames that identify changes in the stream bitrate, and timestamps at which the client device requests different segments. The client-side metrics may include metrics that are produced by the client device, and that directly identify the same client-side issues the server reproduces via the server-side metrics. The server or a distributed platform in which the server operates may dynamically alter the delivery of the stream or perform other remedial actions if the server detects various client-side issues from the server-side metrics.

Abstract: A controller provides dynamic load distribution in a multi-tier distributed platform. The controller may receive a request at a first Point-of-Presence (“PoP”) with a first set of resources. The first PoP may be part of a distributed platform with several distributed PoPs at different network locations. The controller may classify the requested task with a priority, may determine resource availability, and may dynamically distribute the request by (i) providing the request to the first set of resources in response to classifying the task with a high first priority, and determining the availability of the first set of resources to be less than a threshold, and (ii) providing the request to a second PoP in response to classifying the task with a lower second priority, and determining the availability of the first set of resources to be less than the threshold.

Abstract: Server side content impression progression tracking is performed using ping triggers and pings. A server generates ping triggers for content based on an impression list from a configuration provided by the content originator. The server sets different times at which the ping triggers are to fire during content playback. When media playback on a client reaches a time set for a ping trigger, the ping trigger causes the client to return a ping to the server to indicate that playback has reached the designated time. In this manner, the pings granularly track content viewership on different clients, wherein the granular tracking measures not only whether content was viewed or not, but also how much of the content was viewed. Subsequent content to a particular client can be customized based on preferences derived from pings tracked from the particular client.

Abstract: An encodingless transmuxer produces a manifest file and segments for streaming media content over different streaming protocols without encoding or otherwise modifying the binary data from the original encoding of the media content file. The transmuxer detects key frame positions from the media content file metadata. The transmuxer maps segment start times to a subset of the identified key frames based on a segment duration parameter. The transmuxer generates a manifest file listing the segments with each segment identifier comprising a timestamp specifying a time offset for the key frame at which the segment commences. In response to a request for a particular segment, the transmuxer or a streaming server copies or reuses from the original media content file, the binary data for the key frame that commences the particular segment up to the bit immediately before the start of the next segment key frame.

Abstract: Some embodiments provide partitioned serialized caching and delivery of large sized content and files. Some embodiments partition requests for large sized content into segment requests with each segment request identifying a different byte range of the requested content. Each segment request is hashed to identify a particular server from a set of servers tasked with caching and delivering a different segment of the requested content. In this manner, no single server caches or delivers the entirety of large sized content. The segment requests are distributed serially across the set of servers so that the segments are passed in order, wherein the serial distribution involves handing-off the requesting user's connection serially to each server of the set of server in the order with which the set of servers deliver the content segments.

Abstract: The solution distributes the management of stream segments from a central storage cluster to different edge servers that upload stream segments to and receive stream segments from the central storage cluster. Each edge server tracks the stream segments it has uploaded to the central storage cluster as well as the expiration times for those segments. The tracking is performed without a database using a log file and file system arrangement. First-tier directories are created in the file system for different expiration intervals. Entries under the first-tier directories track individual segments that expire within the expiration interval of the first-tier directory with the file system entries being files or a combination of subdirectories and files. Upon identifying expired stream segments, the edge servers instruct the central storage cluster to delete those stream segments. This removes the management overhead from the central storage cluster and implements the distributed management without a database.

Abstract: A network firewall detects and protects against persistent low volume attacks based on a sequence of network data having a pattern that matches by some threshold or percentage a sequence of network data from an earlier iteration of the same persistent low volume attack. The attack patterns are derived from tokenizing one or more elements from a captured sequence of network data that is representative of an attack iteration. Counts for different resulting tokens may be stored in a feature vector that represents the attack pattern. If subsequent sequences of network data have a sufficient number of similar token, a pattern match can be identified and the firewall can take protective action including blacklisting the sending clients, blocking the traffic, redirecting the traffic, sending a problem to verify the sender is an actual user, or other actions.

Abstract: Dynamic and selective compression for content caching is provided for improving content delivery over a digital network. The dynamic and selective compression increased server cache size for higher cache-hit ratios that offset delays associated with compressing and decompressing content. The dynamic compression involves switching between an available set of compression tools in order to compress different files with the compression tool that is optimal for that file. The selective compression involves selectively compressing the content or files with the optimal compression tool when at least a threshold amount of space savings is obtained in an acceptable amount of time. Thus, the caching server caches compressed copies of a first set of files compressed with a first compression tool, compressed copies of a second set of files compressed with a different second compression tool, and an uncompressed third set of files.

Abstract: The progressive delivery of targeted secondary content may include determining that primary content requested from a particular distribution point of a distributed platform includes a first tag to integrate targeted secondary content as part of an initial presentation of the primary content, and a second tag to integrate targeted secondary content outside the initial presentation. The progressive delivery may further include modifying the primary content by replacing the first tag so that the primary content and targeted secondary content for the initial presentation (e.g., third-party content associated with the first tag) are provided from the particular distribution point without accessing a third-party content provider, while targeted secondary content outside the initial presentation (e.g., third-party content associated with the second tag) may be selected and provided by one or more third-party content providers as originally specified in the primary content.