Patent ID: 8281349

Claim:
A content delivery system, comprising: first and second content deliverers each storing a plurality of contents; a third content deliverer that receives one of the plurality of contents transmitted from one of the first and second content deliverers, and transfers the received content to a first terminal, and stores the received content, and, responsive to a delivery request from the first terminal, transmits the stored content to the first terminal; a fourth content deliverer that receives one of the plurality of contents transmitted from one of the first and second content deliverers, and transfers the received content to a second terminal, stores the received content, and, responsive to a delivery request from the second terminal, transmits the stored content to the second terminal; a gateway; a transfer control unit; a service request monitoring unit; and an allocation planning unit, wherein the first content deliverer stores a new content, and transmits to the gateway first storage information indicating that the new content has been stored; the gateway transmits to the transfer control unit a first notification including the first storage information; the transfer control unit, responsive to the first notification, transmits to the first content deliverer a second notification requesting that the first content deliverer transmits the new content to the second, third and fourth content deliverers; the first content deliverer, responsive to the second notification, transmits the new content to the second, third and fourth content deliverers; the third content deliverer transmits a service request from the first terminal to the gateway; the gateway transmits the service request to the service request monitoring unit; the service request monitoring unit transmits, to the allocation planning unit, an analysis indicating that requests for contents from the first terminal have been reduced; the allocation planning unit, responsive to the analysis, transmits to the transfer control unit a result indicating one of the contents stored in the third content deliverer for which service requests from the first terminal have been less frequent; the transfer control unit transmits to the third content deliverer a deletion request for deletion of the indicated content; and the third content deliverer deletes the indicated content in accordance with to the deletion request.