Systems and methods for broadband network optimization

• US 20040044761A1
• Filed: 08/29/2003
• Published: 03/04/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Todd J. Anderson
• Original Assignee: End To End Communications, Inc.
• Inventors: Anderson, Todd J., Phillipi, Mark P., Ross, Bradley S.
• Granted Patent: US 7,305,464 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/083 for increasing network speed
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/087 Jitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0882 Utilisation of link capacity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0888 Throughput
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Disclosed are systems and methods for maximizing transmission throughput or capacity in a heterogeneous communications network. The systems and methods may include any one, or combinations, of: a route tracing module for identifying an optimization endpoint or destination; a testing module for sending representative test data to the endpoint/destination and measuring the data throughput/capacity for a given set of transmission variable values; and an optimization module for analyzing the set of transmission variable values and the associated data throughput/capacity, and determining an optimized set of transmission variables/values. Thus, the optimization module changes the transmission variable values of an associated network device operating within the heterogeneous communications network to achieve maximum data throughput/capacity.

Claims

1. A system for optimizing communications between a first network device and a second network device connected through a plurality of nodes associated with a geographically-distributed heterogeneous network, comprising:

a route determination module having a route tracing algorithm, wherein the route tracing algorithm determines a last common node along a route to the second network device within the geographically-distributed heterogeneous network that is furthest from the first network device; and

a throughput testing module for transmitting data traffic between the first network device and the last common node, the throughput testing module having a throughput algorithm operable for determining a set of transmission variable values for the first network device associated with a maximum transmission capacity between the first network device and the last common node.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the route is selectable from among a plurality of routes through at least a portion of the plurality of nodes.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the route comprises a variable combination of nodes selected from the plurality of nodes.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the last common node comprises the second network device.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the route determination module further comprises a set of test destinations within the geographically-distributed heterogeneous network, wherein the route determination algorithm is operable for determining a set of routes where each route within the set of routes is associated with a sequence of at least a portion of the plurality of nodes between the first network device and one of the test destinations, wherein the last common node is the furthest node from the first network device that is common between each route within the set of routes.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein at least two of the set of test destinations are located in substantially different regions of the geographically-distributed heterogeneous network.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of transmission variable values comprise physical transmission variables.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the physical transmission variables are selected from the group consisting of public communications transmission variables and private communications transmission variables.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the physical transmission variables are selected from the group consisting of Frame Size and Frame Delay.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the physical transmission variables are associated with bandwidth or transit time.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a logical variable derivation module having a derivation algorithm operable for deriving a set of logical transmission variables values from a set of physical transmission variable values.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of transmission variable values comprise logical transmission variables.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the set of logical transmission variables are selected from the group consisting of public communication logical transmission variables and private communication logical transmission variables.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the logical transmission variables are selected from the group consisting of variables that control Disabling or enabling a path maximum transmission unit discovery algorithm, Maximum memory size used to reassemble IP fragments, Minimum threshold memory size for fragmentation reassembly, Time in seconds to keep an IP fragment in memory, Buffer space for IP peer address storage, Minimum time-to-live of packets transmitted, Maximum time-to-live of packets transmitted, Number times a packet is retransmitted in a currently established connection before giving up, Number of retries attempted before killing an existing connection, Maximal number of sockets not attached to any user file handle, Window scaling, Creating specific time stamps in the for IP packets, Use of an alternate algorithm for handling retransmission instead of explicit congestion notification (ECN), Enabling acks to account for all previous un-acknowledged packets, Reception of duplicate sack/acks without triggering retransmission, Explicit Congestion Notification to determine if congestion exists along the path, a Threshold defining the number of packets that can be received out of order before considering them as lost or calling for retransmission, Send buffer memory size, Receive buffer memory size, Number of pages allowed for queuing by all sockets, Reserve max(window/2{circumflex over ( 

)}tcp_app_win, mss) of window for application buffer, Memory space between application buffer and window size, an Algorithm that set values to deliver low latency over higher throughput, and Maximum Transmission Unit data frame size.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of transmission variable values comprise private communications transmission variables.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of transmission variable values comprise public communications transmission variables.

17. The system of claim 1, further comprising a predetermined set of test data usable by the throughput testing module to determine the set of transmission variable values, wherein the predetermined set of test data is associated with a type of communications to be optimized.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the predetermined set of test data traffic is selected from the group consisting of private communications-type data and public communications-type data.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the predetermined set of test data traffic is selected from the group consisting of client/server-type data and Internet-type data.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the throughput testing module is operable to determine interdependencies between transmission variables associated with the set of transmission variable values.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the throughput testing module is operable to simultaneously analyze more than one transmission variable associated with the set of transmission variable values.

32. The system of claim 31, wherein the first network device may be one of a plurality of remote network devices, while the second network device may be a hub or core network device.

22. A method of optimizing data transmissions from a first network device through a geographically-distributed heterogeneous network to a second network device comprising:

identifying a last common node along a route to the second network device within the geographically-distributed heterogeneous network that is furthest from the first network device; and

configuring the first network device with a set of transmission variable values associated with a maximum transmission capacity between the first network device and the last common node.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the set of transmission variables values are selected from the group consisting of physical transmission variable values and logical transmission variable values.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising deriving at least a portion of the logical transmission variable values from the physical transmission variable values.

25. The method of claim 23, further comprising determining at least a portion of the logical transmission variable values independently from the physical transmission variable values.

26. The method of claim 22, wherein the set of transmission variable values are selected from the group consisting of public communication transmission variable values and private communication transmission variable values.

27. The method of claim 22, further comprising determining the set of transmission variable values using a multivariable algorithm.

29. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

generating a plurality of sets of transmission variable values;

configuring the first network device with each of the plurality of sets of transmission variable values;

transmitting at least one predetermined set of test data to at least one test site located within the geographically-distributed heterogeneous network while the first network device is configured with each of the plurality of sets of transmission variable values; and

measuring the throughput capacity at the last common node of each transmission to determine the set of transmission variable values associated with the maximum transmission capacity.

30. The method of claim 22, wherein the last common node comprises the second network device.

28. The method of claim 22, wherein identifying the last common node further comprises:

sending test data to at least two predetermined test sites located within the geographically-distributed heterogeneous network;

tracing the route taken by the test data to each of the at least two predetermined test sites; and

comparing the traced routes to each of the at least two predetermined test sites to determine the last common node.

28-1. The method of clam 27, wherein the at least two predetermined test sites are located in substantially different regions of the geographically-distributed heterogeneous network.

31. A system for optimizing communications between a first network device and a second network device that utilize secure, encrypted data transmissions through a plurality of nodes associated with a geographically-distributed heterogeneous network, comprising:

a testing module for transmitting data traffic between the first network device and the second network device, the testing module having a throughput algorithm operable for determining a set of transmission variable values for at least one of the first and second network devices, where the set of transmission variable values are associated with a maximum transmission capacity between the first and second network devices.

33. The system of claim 31, wherein at least a portion of the set of transmission variable values associated with each of the plurality of remote network devices may be independently determined.

34. The system of claim 31, wherein the data traffic comprises private communications-type data traffic.

35. The system of claim 31, wherein the data traffic comprises client/server-type data traffic.

36. The system of claim 31, wherein the set of transmission variable values are selected from the group consisting of physical transmission variable values and logical transmission variable values.

37. The system of claim 31, wherein the throughput algorithm generates a plurality of sets of transmission variable values and measures a throughput capacity associated with each of the plurality of sets of transmission variable values.

38. A method of optimizing secure, encrypted data transmissions between a first network device and a second network device connected through a geographically-distributed heterogeneous network comprises:

identifying an optimized set of transmission variable values, for a selected one of the first or second network devices, associated with a maximum transmission capacity from the selected network device to the other network device; and

configuring the selected one with the optimized set of transmission variable values.

39. The method of claim 38, further comprising:

generating a plurality of sets of transmission variable values; and

measuring a throughput capacity associated with each of the plurality of sets of transmission variable values.

40. The method of claim 38, further comprising:

generating a plurality of sets of physical transmission variable values;

measuring a throughput capacity associated with each of the plurality of sets of physical transmission variable values; and

selecting the set of physical transmission variable values associated with the maximum throughput capacity.

41. The method of claim 40, further comprising:

deriving at least a portion of a set of logical transmission variable values associated with the maximum transmission capacity from the selected set of physical transmission variable values;

generating a plurality of sets of logical transmission variable values including the derived logical transmission variable values;

measuring a throughput capacity associated with each of the plurality of sets of logical transmission variable values; and

selecting the set of logical transmission variable values associated with the maximum throughput capacity.

42. A system for maximizing transmission capacity between a first network device and a second network device connected through a plurality of nodes of a geographically-distributed communications network, comprising:

an identification module having an optimization endpoint associated with the geographically-distributed communications network;

a testing module having a data testing application operable to send representative test data to the optimization endpoint and to measure the data transmission capacity for a given set of transmission variable values associated with the first network device; and

an optimization module having an optimization algorithm operable to analyze the given set of transmission variable values and the associated data transmission capacity and to determine an optimized set of transmission variable values associated with a maximum data transmission capacity from the first network device to the second network device.

43. The system of claim 42, wherein the optimization endpoint comprises a last common node among a plurality of transmission routes into the geographically-distributed network from the first network device.

44. The system of claim 43, wherein the optimized set of transmission variable values are associated with transmission variables optimized for a public communications type of data, and wherein the optimized set of transmission variable values are further optimized for a variable type selected from the group consisting of physical transmission variables and logical transmission variables.

45. The system of claim 44, wherein the optimization algorithm is further operable to iteratively adjust at least two of the given set of transmission variable values to determine an optimized set of physical transmission variable values, and wherein the optimization algorithm is further operable to derive at least a portion of an optimized set of logical transmission variable values from the optimized set of physical transmission variable values.

46. The system of claim 42, wherein the optimization endpoint comprises the second network device.

47. The system of clam 46, wherein a connection between the first network device and the second network device comprises a point-to-point virtual private network.

48. The system of claim 47, wherein the optimized set of transmission variable values are associated with transmission variables optimized for a private communications type of data, and wherein the optimized set of transmission variable values are further optimized for a variable type selected from the group consisting of physical transmission variables and logical transmission variables.

49. The system of claim 48, wherein the optimization algorithm is further operable to iteratively adjust at least two of the given set of transmission variable values to determine an optimized set of physical transmission variable values, and wherein the optimization algorithm is further operable to derive at least a portion of an optimized set of logical transmission variable values from the optimized set of physical transmission variable values.

50. A method of maximizing transmission capacity between a first network device and a second network device connected through a plurality of nodes of a geographically-distributed communications network, comprising:

identifying an optimization endpoint associated with the geographically-distributed communications network;

sending representative test data to the optimization endpoint and measuring the data transmission capacity for a given set of transmission variable values associated with the first network device; and

analyzing the given set of transmission variable values and the associated data transmission capacity and determining an optimized set of transmission variable values associated with a maximum data transmission capacity from the first network device to the second network device.

51. The method of claim 50, wherein the optimization endpoint comprises a last common node among a plurality of transmission routes into the geographically-distributed network from the first network device.

52. The method of claim 51, wherein determining the optimized set of transmission variable values further comprises optimizing transmission variables associated with a public communications type of data, and further optimizing for a variable type selected from the group consisting of physical transmission variables and logical transmission variables.

53. The method of claim 52, wherein determining the optimized set of transmission variable values further comprises iteratively adjusting at least two of the given set of transmission variable values to determine an optimized set of physical transmission variable values, and deriving at least a portion of an optimized set of logical transmission variable values from the optimized set of physical transmission variable values.

54. The method of claim 50, wherein the optimization endpoint comprises the second network device.

55. The method of clam 55, further comprising connecting the first network device and the second network device in a point-to-point virtual private network.

56. The method of claim 55, wherein determining the optimized set of transmission variable values further comprises optimizing for a private communications type of data, and further optimizing for a variable type selected from the group consisting of physical transmission variables and logical transmission variables.

57. The method of claim 56, wherein determining the optimized set of transmission variable valuess further comprises iteratively adjusting at least two of the given set of transmission variable values to determine an optimized set of physical transmission variable values, and deriving at least a portion of an optimized set of logical transmission variable values from the optimized set of physical transmission variable values.