Patent ID: 7395355

Claim:
A server operative in a content delivery network that is managed by a service provider and shared by a set of participating content provider customers, wherein participating content provider customers identify content to be delivered over the content delivery network and such content has associated therewith at least one content handling requirement that is enforceable at the server, comprising: an XML-based structured document associated with each participating content provider customer, the XML-based structured document comprising one of: at least a first metadata tag, and a second metadata tag, wherein attributes of the first and second metadata tags are settable on a per participating content provider customer basis, and wherein each metadata tag has an associated match type condition; a compression utility; code responsive to receipt of a request for content associated with a given participating content provider customer for retrieving and parsing the XML-based structured document associated with that participating content provider customer; code responsive to a match on the associated match type condition in the first metadata tag for applying the compression utility to a first content type prior to caching; and code responsive to a match on the associated match type condition in the second metadata tag for applying the compression utility to a second content type prior to serving; wherein the first content type and the second content type comprise content types associated with content that a given participating content provider customer has identified to be delivered over the content delivery network.