Patent ID: 7849194

Claim:
A method for administering storage space and storage bandwidth of media assets stored on a server computer system, the method comprising: creating an asset group, comprising: defining a data structure that contains a list of pointers indicating storage locations of media assets stored in the asset group and values of attributes associated with the asset group; determining a storage bandwidth requirement by calculating the attribute values; assigning the asset group to a file system; storing media assets in accordance with the asset group; specifying a maximum simultaneous playouts for asset group attribute, a maximum bit rate of the assets installed in asset group attribute, a guaranteed possible playouts attribute, and a resource quota attribute; calculating the storage bandwidth component of the resource quota by multiplying together a maximum simultaneous playouts attribute, a maximum bit rate attribute, and a default guaranteed possible playouts attribute (DGPP); assigning the asset group to the file system maintained on the server; storing the media asset(s) in accordance with the asset group; and defining a data structure that includes a list of pointers that contain values indicating the storage locations of the media assets stored in the asset group, as well as either pointers to values of the attributes or the attribute values themselves rather than pointers or a combination of the pointers and actual values the asset group providing shared storage space and storage bandwidth on a server computer system for media assets, the server computer system capable of connection to a computer network and communicating with a client computer system over the computer network; calculating a resource quota, the resource quota specifying storage space and storage bandwidth available to the asset group; assigning the asset group to at least one file system, comprising placing the asset group in a single file system without replicating media assets; installing at least one media asset in the asset group; and making the media asset available for transmission to the client computer system over the computer network.