Patent ID: 11949588
Assignee: AGORA LAB, INC.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. An apparatus for real-time multimedia communications using a software-defined network (SDN) including a control node and a pool of service nodes comprising at least one service node, the apparatus comprising:
a processor; and
a memory coupled to the processor, the memory configured to store instructions which when executed by the processor become operational with the processor causing the control node to:
receive, from a network operator, a rule associated with the SDN;
receive, in a first periodic manner, a path metric associated with a first service node in the SDN and a second service node in the SDN, wherein the path metric comprises at least one of:
a load status of at least one of the first service node or the second service node, or
a transmission metric between the first service node and the second service node;

in response to receiving the path metric, identify an optimal path through the pool of service nodes, wherein the optimal path complies with the rule and the pool of service nodes includes at least the first service node and the second service node;
use the optimal path to select a first edge node and a second edge node from the pool of service nodes, wherein the first edge node is a first node in the optimal path and the second edge node is a last node in the optimal path; and
update, in a second periodic manner independent of the first periodic manner, a cascade network topology comprising the optimal path for transmitting multimedia data between the first edge node and the second edge node.