Kasenna announced on March 9th that it has been awarded a core patent on an IPTV content distribution technique that allows large, decentralized IPTV networks to scale more cost-effectively. US Patent 6,859,840, titled "Prefix Caching for Media Objects," provides a general mechanism for distributing content from a content management system maintained at an origin server cluster to a set of edge nodes.

This patented technology manages the flow of content from a provider's origin servers (typically located at the headend) to cache (or edge) servers deployed close to the access part of a network. It adds to the strong portfolio of patents Kasenna has garnered over its rich history. Currently, the company has twelve issued patents and several pending, all centered on IPTV content management, content distribution and content delivery.



The patented mechanism ideally maps to IPTV-capable networks that require distributed content architectures to reach large numbers of subscribers in bandwidth-constrained networks. This patent protects a technique that is broadly applicable to the construction of efficient, large-scale, decentralized IPTV networks.

Today, most solutions for decentralized IPTV networks store all or most of the available content in edge servers, resulting in inefficient use of storage and unnecessary content replication. Patent 6,859,840 describes a technique where content stored at the edge is "tiered" according to the content's popularity to minimize storage usage. When combined with Kasenna's network- wide content management capabilities, this technology can dramatically reduce the disk storage requirements at the edges of the network.

"IPTV service providers must often choose between rapid delivery of on- demand content from locations close to each user and minimizing the cost of providing that functionality," said Dr. Satish Menon, Ph.D., Chief Technical Officer of Kasenna and a co-inventor of the patent. "This patented technology eliminates the dilemma by allowing providers to cache the most popular content in edge servers while also providing immediate access to content from origin servers."

Source: Kasenna, Inc.