Patent ID: 8090861
Filing Date: 2012-01-03
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of negotiating which one or more blocks of content are to be exchanged between two peers in a peer to peer content distribution cloud the method comprising, at a peer node acting as a client node: (i) sending an offer request message comprising information about one or more groups of one or more blocks of content encoded using Group Network Coding for which the client node needs content and information which at least partially indicates those blocks of content that are already available to the client node, the offer request message being sent to another peer node acting as a server node to request an offer of one or more blocks of content available from that server node; (ii) receiving an offer reply message from the server node comprising information about less than a total number of one or more blocks of content already available from the server node either in Group Network Coding form or that the server node is able to encode using Group Network Coding; and (iii) selecting at least one block on the basis of the information in the offer reply message and sending a block request message to the server node to request the selected block(s).