Managing classified network streams

• US 10,038,616 B2
• Filed: 09/25/2014
• Issued: 07/31/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Talat, Ahmed, Bhatt, Vibhor, Sinnemaki, Jeff, Aleksenko, Alexei, Sacson, Ilia, Fuller, Jeffrey C., Salman, Milena, Ravi, Madhusudhan, Karam, Mohammed, Jain, Neel
• Primary Examiner(s): Book, Phyllis A
• Application Number:
  US14/497,313
• Publication Number:
  US 20160094427A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,405 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0894 Packet rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/196 Integration of transport layer protocols, e.g. TCP and UDP
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2441 relying on flow classification, e.g. using integrated services [IntServ]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]

Abstract

Embodiments relate to classifying network streams and regulating behavior of the streams based on their respective classes. One technique for managing streams involves analyzing applications, obtaining indicia of features of the applications, and using those features to infer classes to which streams of the applications may be assigned. Another technique involves deploying beacon nodes at the edge of a network. The beacon nodes inform a stream manager about network conditions such as latencies with regard to network boundaries or regions. Another embodiment for facilitating management of streams involves a subscription service for UDP applications. A UDP application may subscribe to the service, which may be provided by an operating system hosting the application. Events are published to any subscribed UDP applications to inform the UDP applications of changes in networking conditions. The UDP applications, in turn, may adapt their internal transmission control logic.

Claims

1. A method performed by a single computer comprising storage, processing hardware, and a network interface, the method comprising:

executing applications installed on the computing device, the applications comprising executable files installed on the computer and configuration settings stored on the computer, the applications having respective network streams managed by an operating system of the computer;

automatically determining first features of the applications, respectively, and/or automatically determining second features of the applications, respectively, wherein the determining is performed by an application profiler that executes on the computer, wherein the automatically determining the first features comprises the application profiler parsing the executable files and/or the configuration settings, wherein the automatically determining the second features comprises the application profiler monitoring execution of the applications, and wherein a first and/or second feature is determined for each of the respective applications;

accessing a mapping in the storage, the mapping comprising predefined application features and indicia of network stream classes that are implemented by the operating system of the computer, the mapping indicating which of the predefined application features are associated with which of the network stream classes, wherein the mapping is stored before the determining the first and/or second features, and wherein the predefined application features comprise at least some of the first and/or second features;

for each of the applications, determining which of the respective first and/or second features determined by the application profiler match which of the predefined application features in the mapping, and selecting a network stream class for each of the applications based on which network stream class the mapping indicates is associated with the respectively matched predefined application feature;

storing application classification information indicating which of the network stream classes were selected for the respective applications; and

regulating, by the operating system of the computing device, transmission of packets of the streams by the network interface, wherein the regulating of each stream is performed according to which network stream class the application classification information indicates was selected for the corresponding application.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the regulating is performed by, for a given network stream associated with a given network stream class, comparing a measure of bandwidth and/or latency performance of the given network stream with a corresponding bandwidth and/or latency specification of the given network stream class.

3. A method according to claim 1 wherein the first features comprise components of the operating system determined, by the application profiler, to be referenced by the applications.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the second features comprise features of the applications that arise during, and as a result of, execution of the applications.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the predefined application features of the mapping have respective weights that are used to determine which of the network stream classes best matches identified features of an application.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein the automatically determining the first and/or second features is performed for an application responsive to determining, from the classification information, that the application is not already associated with any network stream class that is included in the mapping.

7. A method according to claim 6, further comprising using features of the application determined by the application profiler to automatically select a network stream class for the application, and updating the classification information to indicate an association between the application and the network stream class selected therefor.

8. A method according to claim 7, further comprising storing an indication that a stream of the application has the network stream class based on the indicated association between the application and the selected network stream class.

9. A computing device comprising:

storage hardware storing information to enable a processor, when the computing device is operating, to execute an operating system;

a network interface;

the processor, when the computing device is operating, coupled with memory to execute the operating system; and

the operating system, when executing, comprising a stream manager that manages network streams that provide transmission control protocol (TCP) packets between a network and applications installed on the computing device and executed by the operating system, the stream manager implementing a pre-defined set of stream classes, wherein each network stream is associated with one of the stream classes based on associations between the stream classes and the streams;

the storage hardware storing instructions configured to form an association between a stream class and a network stream of an application by;

executing application profiling code that (i) determines a first application feature of the application by parsing configuration settings and/or an executable file of the application, and/or (ii) determines second application features of the application by monitoring execution of the application;

accessing a mapping comprising associations between predefined application features and the stream classes, the mapping indicating which predefined application features are associated with which stream classes, wherein the mapping exists prior to the forming the association between the stream class and the network stream;

forming the association between the stream class and the network stream of the application by matching a predefined application feature in the mapping with the first and/or second application feature of the application as determined by the application profiling code, and selecting the stream class based on the mapping having an association between the matched predefined application feature and the stream class;

storing the association between the stream class and the network stream; and

regulating, by the operating system, transmission of the network stream by the network interface, wherein the regulating is performed based on the stored association between the stream class and the network stream.

10. A computing device according to claim 9, wherein the stream manager provides an event publication service that provides updates to applications subscribed thereto responsive to determinations that network conditions of the computing device have changed, wherein indicia of the network conditions are used by the stream manager to regulate the behavior of the network streams.

11. A computing device according to claim 9, further comprising a power management module of the operating system that controls powering of a radio according to the stream class associated with the network stream.

12. A computing device according to claim 9, wherein the operating system induces delays in the network streams according to the stream classes respectively associated with the network streams, the inducing comprising artificially delaying transmission control protocol (TCP) acknowledgments and/or extending receive-acknowledgment thresholds to avoid TCP retransmits, the receive-acknowledgment thresholds comprising periods of time before which retransmission requests are issued.

13. A computing device according to claim 9, wherein the associations between the network streams and the stream classes are based on application-class association information indicating which applications are associated with which of the stream classes.

14. Computer readable storage device storing information configured to enable a computing device to perform a process, the process comprising:

storing applications installed on the computing device, the applications comprising executable files and configuration settings stored by the storage hardware;

for each application, automatically determining respective first and/or second application features by executing an application profiler that (i) determines the first feature by parsing the executable file and/or the corresponding configuration settings of the respectively corresponding application, and/or (ii) determines the second feature by monitoring execution of the respectively corresponding application, wherein a first and/or second application feature is determined for each of the respective applications;

accessing a feature-class mapping that is stored by the storage hardware prior to the automatically determining the first and/or second application features for each respective application, the feature-class mapping comprising first indicia of predefined application features and second indicia of network application classes, wherein the feature-class mapping indicates which of the application features are associated with which of the network application classes, and wherein the predefined application features comprise at least some of the first and/or second application features;

for each of the applications, determining which of the respectively corresponding first and/or second application features correspond to which of the predefined application features of the feature-class mapping;

for each of the applications, selecting a network application class that the feature-class mapping indicates is associated with the predefined application feature determined to correspond to the first and/or second application feature of the respectively corresponding application;

storing application classification information indicating which of the network application classes were selected for the applications, respectively; and

regulating, by an operating system of the computing device, transmission of packets of streams of the applications by the network interface, wherein the regulating of each stream is performed according to which network application class the application classification information indicates was selected for the respectively corresponding application.

15. Computer readable storage device according to claim 14, wherein the first and/or second features comprise process names associated with the applications, libraries linked to the applications, background execution statuses of the applications, port numbers associated with the applications, protocols used by the applications, and/or application programming interface (API) calls of the applications.

16. Computer readable storage device according to claim 14, the process further comprising computing scores for an application according to weights of the predefined application features, respectively.

17. Computer readable storage device according to claim 14, wherein the regulating is performed without the computing device performing Quality of Service marking on the streams.

18. Computer readable storage device according to claim 14, the process further comprising storing network performance parameters of the network application classes, respectively, and performing the regulating for a stream of an application according to the performance parameters of the network application class that the application classification information indicates is associated with the application.