Patent ID: 7171491

Claim:
In a transferring node, a method for distributing data in an overlay network based on logical relationships, said overlay network including a hierarchical network of nodes, said overlay network implemented as an abstraction on top of an existing network based on other connections, the method comprising the steps of: receiving at the transferring node a collection of data from a provider node in the hierarchical network of nodes; transferring a copy of the collection of data to a child node of the transferring node in the hierarchical network of nodes in response to the step of receiving the collection of data; and storing the collection of data in a data storage in the transferring node after completing the step of transferring the copy of the collection of data; wherein the collection of data represents content distributed as a stream of packets to the hierarchical network from a source node, and wherein: the step of receiving the collection of data comprises receiving the stream of packets in a buffer; the step of transferring the copy of the collection of data comprises propagating the stream of packets from the buffer to descendent nodes of the transferring node for access by a first client making a first request for the collection of data from the descendent node; and the step of storing the collection of data comprises transferring the stream of packets from the buffer to the data storage in the transferring node in a manner enabling access to the collection of data by a second client making a second request for the collection of data.