Patent ID: 8626876

Claim:
An intermediate server for handling content requests received from edge servers in a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and accessing and processing content distributed throughout the CDN, the intermediate server comprising: a port that receives a content request from an edge server, wherein: the content request includes a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) associated with requested content; and the edge server and the intermediate server are part of a first Point-of-Presence (POP) in the CDN; a content processor communicatively coupled to the port and configured to: pass the URI to an operating system operating on the intermediate server, wherein the operating system passes the URI to a specialized virtual file server; receive the requested content from the specialized virtual file server through the operating system; and perform a processing function on the requested content to produce processed content for delivery to the edge server; a CDN content interface comprising the specialized virtual file server that provides virtualized access to content files in multiple POPs that are accessible throughout the CDN using URIs, wherein the CDN content interface is configured to: receive a first portion of content using the URI; wherein the first portion of content is stored in the first POP; receive a second portion of content using the URI; wherein the second portion of content is accessible from a second POP; generate the requested content by combining at least the first portion of content and the second portion of content; provide the requested content to the operating system through the specialized virtual file server, wherein the specialized virtual file server makes the requested content comprising the first portion of content and the second portion of content appear to be a single locally-stored file to the content processor; and provide the requested content to the content processor.