Patent ID: 8775648

Claim:
A machine-implementable method for managing cloud-based transcoding resources available to a content delivery network, comprising: maintaining a queue of video transcoding jobs that may be executed by internal transcoders of the content delivery network or by external transcoders of a plurality of cloud-based resources, wherein maintaining comprises utilizing a server of the content delivery network; executing at least a first portion of the transcoding jobs by utilizing a first number of the internal transcoders; at a first time: determining the first number of the internal transcoders and a first number of the external transcoders that are currently activated for transcoding, determining a desired elapsed time to completion of the backlog of video transcoding jobs, generating a first transcoding job backlog from at least high priority jobs in the queue of video transcoding jobs, generating a first clearance time estimate based at least on the first transcoding job backlog, on the first number of the internal transcoders, and on the first number of the external transcoders, and generating a first transcoder supply deviation by comparing at least the first clearance time estimate and the desired elapsed time to completion; executing at least a second portion of the transcoding jobs by utilizing a second number of the internal transcoders; and at a second time that is later than the first time, determining the second number of the internal transcoders and a second number of the external transcoders that are currently activated for transcoding, generating a second transcoding job backlog from at least high priority jobs in the queue of video transcoding jobs, generating a second clearance time estimate based on the second transcoding job backlog, on the second number of the internal transcoders, and on the second number of the external transcoders, generating a second transcoder supply deviation by comparing the second clearance time estimate and the desired elapsed time to completion, comparing the first transcoder supply deviation with the second transcoder supply deviation to generate a trend indicator, and determining whether to activate one or more additional external transcoders for transcoding, deactivate one or more of the second number of the external transcoders from transcoding, or make no change to the second number of the external transcoders that are currently activated for transcoding, based at least on the second transcoder supply deviation and the trend indicator.