Patent attributes
A server selects edge-server sets to deliver data to client devices. To rapidly find an optimal or near-optimal edge-server set, the server constructs a trellis having a number of states at least equal to the number of edge servers to be included in an edge-server set. Each state comprises a plurality of nodes, wherein each node corresponds to one of the plurality of candidate edge servers. A trellis-exploration algorithm selects the edge-server set by providing interconnects between each node of a first state to each of a plurality of nodes in a next state, and for each node in a state, selecting a path corresponding to a best performance metric that connects to a node in a previous state. Each performance metric comprises network topology information, which can include channel measurements from candidate edge servers. When the edge-server set is selected, the server distributes content to the edge servers, which is then transmitted to the client devices.
