Internet infrastructure survey

• US 10,397,178 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2016
• Issued: 08/27/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/04/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Original Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Inventors: Kagan, Martin
• Primary Examiner(s): Ibrahim, Mohamed
• Application Number:
  US15/199,592
• Publication Number:
  US 20170034119A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,153 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/35 containing special prefixes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/24 Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/302 Administrative registration, e.g. for domain names at internet corporation for assigned names and numbers [ICANN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/58 Caching of addresses or names
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/30 Profiles

Abstract

A system for surveying Internet access quality includes a nameserver, registered to be authoritative for a domain name and configured to receive a DNS query to resolve a pseudo-hostname and to extract from the pseudo-hostname an access quality indicator, and a web portal configured to transmit a data survey code to a web browser, the data survey code being configured to access a resource, to determine the access quality indicator responsively to the resource access, to generate the pseudo-hostname including the access quality indicator and the domain name, and to initiate the DNS query.

Claims

1. A method for surveying Internet access quality, comprising:

receiving at a DNS nameserver a DNS query for the resolution of a pseudo-hostname, wherein the pseudo-hostname is a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) that comprises an indicator of an access quality measurement and a parameter identifying an infrastructure associated with the access quality measurement;

extracting, from the pseudo-hostname, data including the indicator of the access quality measurement and the parameter identifying the infrastructure associated with the access quality measurement; and

generating an access quality profile using the extracted data.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

conveying the access quality profile to a requester.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising determining a preferred Internet access route responsively to the profile.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein determining a preferred Internet access route comprises determining an infrastructure at which a web client accesses a resource.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the access quality profile is specific to an infrastructure.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the access quality profile is specific to a client region.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicator is a first indicator, and wherein generating an access quality profile comprises:

receiving at the nameserver one or more additional DNS queries providing one or more additional respective indicators of access quality measurements; and

calculating an average of the first indicator and the one or more additional indicators.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicator is a first indicator, and wherein generating an access quality profile comprises:

receiving at the nameserver one or more additional DNS queries providing one or more additional respective indicators of access quality measurements; and

calculating a difference of the first indicator and the one or more additional indicators.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicator is a first indicator, and wherein generating an access quality profile comprises:

receiving at the nameserver one or more additional DNS queries providing one or more additional respective indicators of access quality measurements;

measuring times preceding receipt of the first DNS query and each of the one or more additional DNS; and

calculating a time-weighted average of the first indicator and the one or more additional indicators.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the type of the access quality indicated is one of a set of access quality types including:

a round trip time of Internet communications, a connection delay time, a transmission speed, a variability of transmission speed, a communications error rate, and an availability of a resource.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein receipt of the DNS query is an indication that access quality has changed.

12. A method for surveying Internet access quality, comprising:

transmitting a code to a web client, wherein the code is configured;

to execute at the web client to determine an indicator of measured access quality, the determining comprising;

issuing a request for a resource; and

obtaining the measured access quality from a time delay associated with the request;

to create a pseudo-hostname that is a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) which combines the indicator of measured access quality and a domain name; and

to initiate a DNS query to resolve the pseudo-hostname.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the obtaining comprises measuring a type of access quality with respect to a response.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the type of access quality measured is one of a set of types of access quality including:

a round trip time of Internet communication, a connection delay time, a transmission speed, or a variability of transmission.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the resource is accessed from a cache at an infrastructure and wherein the code is configured to issue the request for the resource by issuing two requests for the resource and adding a randomly generated resource parameter to each request.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the resource is a first resource and the code is configured to initiate the DNS query by requesting a second resource at an address specified by the pseudo-hostname.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the web client is a web browser and wherein the code is configured to run within the web browser in a manner that is transparent to a user of the web browser.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein the code is configured to round the access quality measurement to a lower precision such that the DNS request to resolve the pseudo-hostname may be resolved by a resolver.

19. A method for surveying Internet access quality, comprising:

issuing a request for a resource;

obtaining a response or a time-out for the request;

generating an access quality measurement based on the response or on the time-out;

creating a pseudo-hostname, which is a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) that encodes the access quality measurement; and

initiating a DNS query to resolve the pseudo-hostname.

20. A system for surveying Internet access quality, comprising:

a nameserver implemented on one or more first computer processors with first memory coupled thereto, the nameserver registered to be authoritative for a domain name and configured to receive a DNS query to resolve a pseudo-hostname and to extract from the pseudo-hostname an indicator of an access quality measurement; and

a web portal implemented on one or more second computer processors with second memory coupled thereto, the web portal configured to transmit a data survey code to a web browser, wherein the data survey code is configured to access a resource, to determine the access quality measurement responsively to the resource access, to generate the pseudo-hostname, which is a fully qualified domain name that includes the indicator of the access quality measurement and the domain name, and to initiate the DNS query;

wherein the data survey code is configured to run within the web browser in a manner that is transparent to a user of the web browser.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the DNS query is a first DNS query, and wherein load on the nameserver is reduced by resolution of a second DNS query for the pseudo-hostname, including the same indicator of the access quality measurement as in the first DNS query, in a resolver cache.