Method and apparatus for a client connection manager

• US 20040044771A1
• Filed: 08/15/2002
• Published: 03/04/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Digi International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Embrace Networks Inc.
• Inventors: Allred, Curtis M., Schwartz, Elliot
• Granted Patent: US 7,152,111 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0823 Errors, e.g. transmission errors
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2564 for a higher-layer protocol, e.g. for session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2567 for reachability, e.g. inquiring the address of a correspondent behind a NAT server
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/02 for separating internal from external traffic, e.g. firewalls
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0209 Architectural arrangements, e.g. perimeter networks or demilitarized zones
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/029 Firewall traversal, e.g. tunnelling or, creating pinholes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/145 avoiding end of session, e.g. keep-alive, heartbeats, resumption message or wake-up for inactive or interrupted session
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/2895 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data provider application, e.g. reverse proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/14 Multichannel or multilink protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/161 Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/163 In-band adaptation of TCP data exchange; In-band control procedures

Abstract

A method and apparatus for a connection manager have been disclosed. By providing for persistent connections with clients, the connection manager allows for servers to communicate with clients, which would otherwise be inaccessible.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a plurality of client connection requests;

establishing a connection to the plurality of clients;

maintaining substantially persistent connections with the plurality of clients; and

establishing a new connection based on an active communication.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of client connection requests are temporally disparate.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said establishing new connections based on the active communication further comprises establishing a connection with a new client.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the new client is not one of the plurality of clients with a substantially persistent connection.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the connection with the new client communicates utilizing a connection, protocol, or language selected from the group consisting of TCP, HTTP, UDP, FTP, PPP, IP, Internet, wired, wireless, and XML.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the new client connection persistency is based upon active communications.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the active communications further comprises the transfer of a payment and/or credit.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising transitioning information associated with said substantially persistent connections to other resources.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein said information stored in a first memory is transitioned to a second memory, said second memory slower in access than said first memory.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising reallocating entities associated with said substantially persistent connections.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein said entities are selected from the group consisting of resources, and data.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein said resources are selected from the group consisting of threads, and buffers, and said data are selected from the group consisting of connection tables, and connection state information.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein said reallocating comprises an operation selected from the group consisting of freeing all or some of said resources, and storing all or some of said data to another storage.

14. A method comprising:

receiving multiple client connections;

maintaining substantially persistent connections; and

forwarding communications.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the forwarding communications is forwarding communications to another client.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein the client connections are received via the Internet.

17. The method of claim 14 wherein the substantially persistent connections are via the Internet.

18. The method of claim 14 wherein the forwarded communications are via the Internet.

19. The method of claim 14 wherein the multiple client connections are each received at pre-determined times.

20. The method of claim 14 wherein forwarding said communications is based upon contents of said communications.

21. A processing system comprising a processor, which when executing a set of instructions performs the method of claim 14.

22. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions, which when executed performs the method of claim 14.

23. The method of claim 14 wherein maintaining substantially persistent connections further comprises transitioning from an active communication state to an inactive communication state.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein transitioning from said active communication state to said inactive communication state further comprises freeing threads and buffers associated with said active communication state.

25. The method of claim 23 wherein transitioning from said active communication state to said inactive communication state further comprises storing information associated with said active communication state into a slower access medium.

26. The method of claim 14 wherein maintaining substantially persistent connections further comprises transitioning from an inactive communication state to an active communication state.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein transitioning from said inactive communication state to said active communication state further comprises allocating threads and buffers to be associated with said active communication state.

28. The method of claim 26 wherein transitioning from said inactive communication state to said active communication state further comprises storing information associated with said inactive communication state into a faster access medium.

29. An apparatus comprising:

means for receiving one or more client connection requests;

means for establishing one or more client connections;

means for maintaining one or more client connections; and

means for transferring one or more communications.

30. The apparatus of claim 29 wherein the client connection requests are received at random times.

31. The apparatus of claim 29 wherein the maintaining one or more client connections is maintaining a substantially persistent connection.

32. The apparatus of claim 29 wherein the transferring one or more communications is between the one or more client connections.

33. The apparatus of claim 29 wherein the transferring one or more communications is based upon contents of said communications.

34. The apparatus of claim 33 wherein the transferring further comprises means for establishing a new connection.

35. The apparatus of claim 34 wherein the new connection is not one of the existing maintained one or more client connections.

36. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon information representing the apparatus of claim 29.

37. The apparatus of claim 29 further comprising:

means for transitioning said client connection from an active communication state to an inactive communication state; and

means for transitioning said client connection from said inactive communication state to said active communication state.

38. The apparatus of claim 37 wherein in means for transitioning further comprises:

means for freeing and allocating threads and buffers; and

means for storing and retrieving connection information.

39. The apparatus of claim 29 further comprising:

means for transitioning said one or more communications from an active communication state to an inactive communication state; and

means for transitioning said one or more communications from said inactive communication state to said active communication state.

40. An apparatus for managing client connections, comprising:

a first circuitry having a first Set Of Links (SOL), a second SOL, control inputs, and control outputs, the first SOL coupled to receive first clients connection requests, and the control inputs coupled to receive first control commands;

a third circuitry having a first SOL, a second SOL, control outputs, first control inputs, and second control inputs, the outputs coupled to third clients connection requests, the first control inputs coupled to receive the first circuitry control outputs, and the second control inputs coupled to receive the third control commands;

a second circuitry having a first SOL, a second SOL, first control inputs, and second control inputs, the first SOL coupled to receive the first circuitry second SOL, the second SOL coupled to the third circuitry first SOL, and the first control inputs coupled to receive the first circuitry control outputs, and the second control inputs to receive the third circuitry control outputs.

41. The apparatus of claim 40 wherein the first and third control commands are the same.

42. The apparatus of claim 40 wherein the first clients connection requests and the third clients connection requests are the same.

43. The apparatus of claim 40 wherein the second circuitry establishes connections between its first SOL and second SOL based upon the second circuitry first and/or second control inputs.

44. The apparatus of claim 43 wherein the second circuitry first and/or second control inputs are based upon communications received over the first circuitry first SOL and/or the third circuitry first SOL.

45. The apparatus of claim 40 wherein the first control inputs cause the first circuitry to establish connections based on first clients connection requests.

46. The apparatus of claim 40 wherein the third control inputs cause the third circuitry to establish connections based on third clients connection requests.

47. A system comprising a processor, which when executing a set of instructions, performs the following:

receives a plurality of connection requests from a first plurality of clients;

establishes a plurality of connections for communications with the first plurality of clients based upon the plurality of connection requests;

monitors the communications on the plurality of connections; and

makes connections between the first plurality of clients and a second plurality of clients based upon the communications contents.

48. The system of claim 47 wherein the first plurality of clients and the second plurality of clients are the same.

49. The system of claim 47 wherein the establishment of the plurality of connections for communications with the first plurality of clients is substantially a persistent connection.

50. The system of claim 47 wherein if the substantially persistent connection is dropped the corresponding client from the first plurality of clients will issue another connection request.

51. The system of claim 50 wherein some of the first plurality of clients are located behind firewalls, some of the second plurality of second clients are servers, and the connections for communications are via the Internet.

52. The system of claim 47 further performing transitioning information and resources associated with each of said plurality of connections between system resources based upon a state of said communications on each of said plurality of connections being in an active communication state or an inactive communication state.

53. The system of claim 52 wherein said information and resources are selected from the group consisting of threads, buffers, tables, and state information.

54. A method comprising:

receiving a connection request from a client;

establishing a first connection with the client based upon the connection request from the client;

establishing a second connection with a server based upon the connection request from the client;

connecting the first connection with the second connection such that the connection is transparent to both the client and the server.

55. The method of claim 54 wherein the establishing and connecting is via a connection manager.

56. The method of claim 54 further comprising transitioning a connection to a state selected from the group consisting of said first connection from an active state to an inactive state, said first connection from an inactive state to an active state, said second connection from an active state to an inactive state, and said second connection from an inactive state to an active state.

57. The method of claim 56 wherein transitioning further comprises moving information associated with said active state and inactive state between a faster access information storage medium and a slower access information storage medium.

58. A method comprising:

receiving connection requests from a plurality of clients;

establishing a first connection with each of the plurality of clients based upon each connection request from the plurality of clients;

establishing a second connection with a specific server based upon the connection request from each of the plurality of clients;

creating a connection between the first connection of a specific client with the second connection of said specific server such that the connection is transparent to both the said client and the said server.

59. The method of claim 58 further comprising tearing down a previously created connection.

60. The method of claim 59 wherein said teardown is based upon a timeout.

61. The method of claim 60 wherein the timeout is based upon a lack of information communicated over said previously created connection.

62. The method of claim 61 wherein said lack of information is selected from the group consisting of traffic, acks, requests, activity, and TCP req/acks.

63. The method of claim 59 wherein said tearing down said connection does not tear down said first connection with said client.

64. The method of claim 63 wherein any connection state data associated with said connection prior to tear down is moved to a secondary storage upon said tearing down.

65. The method of claim 64 wherein the secondary storage is selected from the group consisting of a disk, a database, flash, virtual memory, and holographic.

66. The method of claim 59 further comprising establishing a connection between said client and a second server.

67. The method of claim 66 wherein said second server and the server are the same server.

68. The method of claim 66 wherein the establishment of the connection to the second server is based upon a communication from said second server.

69. The method of claim 68 wherein the establishment of the connection to the second server is temporally displaced from the establishment of the connection to the server.

70. The method of claim 69 wherein said second server and the server are the same server.

71. The method of claim 58 further comprising tearing down a previously created connection based upon communications over said previously created connection.

72. The method of claim 71 wherein said communications is from said server or said client.

73. The method of claim 71 wherein said tearing down said connection does not tear down said first connection with said client.

74. The method of claim 73 wherein communications for teardown is from said client and said teardown communications is not communicated to said server.

75. The method of 58 wherein said connection is a TCP connection.

76. A method comprising:

closing an application'"'"'s socket when a client connection is transitioned to an inactive state;

maintaining a connection with the client;

opening a socket to the client in response to a connection request from the application; and

mapping the connection request to the maintained connection with the client.

77. The method of claim 76, wherein mapping the connection request to the maintained connection with the client further comprises transitioning the client to an active state.

78. The method of claim 76 further comprising:

receiving client data; and

simulating a connection request to an application.

79. The method of claim 76 wherein any connection state data associated with said application'"'"'s socket transitioning to an inactive state is moved to a secondary storage selected from the group consisting of a disk, a database, flash, virtual memory, and holographic.

80. The method of claim 79 wherein the connection state data is selected from the group consisting of active connection data, inactive connection data, transition from active to inactive connection data, and transition from inactive to active connection data.

81. An apparatus comprising:

a client having a communications port;

an agent having a first communications port and a second communications port, the first communications port coupled to communicate with the client communications port; and

a connection manager having a plurality of communications ports, at least one of the plurality of communication ports coupled to communicate with the agent'"'"'s second communications port.

82. The apparatus of claim 81 wherein the connection manager is part of a server.

83. The apparatus of claim 81 wherein the connection manager is a stand-alone appliance.

84. The apparatus of claim 81 wherein the agent is located on a same side of a firewall as the client.

85. The apparatus of claim 81 wherein said connection manager has a plurality of communication states of said plurality of communication ports.

86. A method comprising:

establishing a connection; and

maintaining the connection in an active state, or a non-active state selected from the group consisting of inactive, and sleep.

87. The method of claim 86 wherein maintaining the connection is via a keep-alive signal.

88. The method of claim 86 wherein the connection is a connection supporting TCP.

89. The method of claim 88 further comprising transitioning an active connection to the group consisting of inactive, and sleep based upon a criteria selected from the group consisting of server activity, time, performance, and explicit transition control.

90. The method of claim 89 wherein explicit transition control is based on a parameter selected from the group consisting of a timeout period, whether or not keep-alives are necessary, whether or not a persistent connection is necessary, and an always active state.

91. The method of claim 86 further comprising maintaining a connection table on the connection, the connection table having entries selected from the group consisting of socket information, status of the connection, timestamp, transition time interval, state reference data, and sequence number.

92. The method of claim 91 wherein the sequence number is a TCP sequence number for the connection.

93. The method of claim 92 wherein maintaining the connection is via a keep-alive signal using the TCP sequence number.

94. The method of claim 86 further comprising a connection state table.

95. The method of claim 94 wherein the connection state table is a plurality of tables, at least one table for an active connection, and at least one table for a non-active connection.

96. The method of claim 95 wherein the connection state table further comprises status information.

97. The method of claim 95 further comprising:

spawning a low priority thread to search at least one of the plurality of tables; and

reviving a non-active connection.

98. The method of claim 95 wherein any connection state table data associated with a said active state is moved to a secondary storage selected from the group consisting of a disk, a database, flash, virtual memory, and holographic upon a transition from active state to non-active state.

99. The method of claim 98 wherein the connection state table data is selected from the group consisting of active connection data, non-active connection data, transition from active to non-active connection data, and transition from non-active to active connection data.

100. The method of claim 86 further comprising caching the connection.