Transaction boundary detection for reduction in timeout penalties

• US 20050074007A1
• Filed: 07/28/2004
• Published: 04/07/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Original Assignee: Orbital Data Corporation (Cloud Software Group)
• Inventors: Samuels, Allen R., Sutter, Paul G.
• Granted Patent: US 8,233,392 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/392
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1887 Scheduling and prioritising arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/189 Transmission or retransmission of more than one copy of a message
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0092 Error control systems characterised by the topology of the transmission link
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/2876 Pairs of inter-processing entities at each side of the network, e.g. split proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• 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 69/166 IP fragmentation; TCP segmentation

Abstract

One or more flow control modules, implemented on various types of network topologies, provide a number of functionalities for controlling the flow of IP packets (such as TCP/IP packets) over a network connection. The flow control modules may be implemented within a sender and/or receiver or may be deployed into a network as a separate device without requiring significant additional resources.

Claims

1. A method for communicating a plurality of data packets associated with a transaction from a sender to a receiver over a network connection, the method comprising:

observing the data packets associated with the transaction;

determining when the last data packet associated with the transaction has been transmitted by the sender; and

after a last data packet of the transaction has been transmitted, transmitting one or more additional data packets to the receiver, wherein the one or more additional data packets cause the generation of one or more acknowledgements if received by the receiver.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining when the last data packet for the transaction has been transmitted comprises observing when the sender ceases transmitting data packets for a predetermined period of time.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining when the last data packet for the transaction has been transmitted comprises observing the value of a PSH bit in the data packets transmitted by the sender.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining when the last data packet for the transaction has been transmitted comprises parsing an application protocol for the transmitted data packets.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more additional data packets transmitted comprise one or more of the last data packets of the transaction.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more additional data packets transmitted comprise portions of one or more of the last data packets of the transaction.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more additional data packets transmitted are generated according to a forward error correction technique for the data in the transaction.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of additional data packets transmitted is selected based on a current loss rate for the network connection.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the data packets are TCP/IP packets.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving the one or more acknowledgements for the one or more additional data packets; and

determining whether the data packets associated with the transaction have been received by the receiver based on the one or more acknowledgements for the one or more additional data packets.

11. A method for communicating data from a sender to a receiver over a network connection, the method comprising:

a step for detecting a transaction boundary in which the last data packet of the transaction has been transmitted; and

transmitting at least one additional data packet after the transaction boundary, the at least one additional data packet configured to cause an acknowledgement from the receiver.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the step for detecting comprises observing when the sender ceases transmitting data packets for a predetermined period of time.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the step for detecting comprises observing the value of a PSH bit in the data packets transmitted by the sender.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the step for detecting comprises parsing an application protocol for the transmitted data packets.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein at least one additional data packet transmitted comprises one or more of the last data packets of the transaction.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein at least one additional data packet comprises portions of one or more of the last data packets of the transaction.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein at least one additional data packet transmitted is generated according to a forward error correction technique for the data in the transaction.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the number of additional data packets transmitted is selected based on a current loss rate for the network connection.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving an acknowledgement for the at least one additional data packet; and

determining, based on the acknowledgement, whether the data packets associated with the transaction have been received or need to be retransmitted.

20. A computer program product for communicating a plurality of data packets associated with a transaction from a sender to a receiver over a network connection, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code for performing the operations:

observing the data packets associated with the transaction;

determining when the last data packet associated with the transaction has been transmitted by the sender; and

after a last data packet of the transaction has been transmitted, transmitting one or more additional data packets to the receiver, wherein the one or more additional data packets cause the generation of one or more acknowledgements if received by the receiver.

21. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein determining when the last data packet for the transaction has been transmitted comprises observing when the sender ceases transmitting data packets for a predetermined period of time.

22. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein determining when the last data packet for the transaction has been transmitted comprises observing the value of a PSH bit in the data packets transmitted by the sender.

23. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein determining when the last data packet for the transaction has been transmitted comprises parsing an application protocol for the transmitted data packets.

24. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the one or more additional data packets transmitted comprise one or more of the last data packets of the transaction.

25. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the one or more additional data packets transmitted comprise portions of one or more of the last data packets of the transaction.

26. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the one or more additional data packets transmitted are generated according to a forward error correction technique for the data in the transaction.

27. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the number of additional data packets transmitted is selected based on a current loss rate for the network connection.

28. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the data packets are TCP/IP packets.

29. The computer program product of claim 20, the computer program code further for performing the operations:

receiving the one or more acknowledgements for the one or more additional data packets; and

determining whether the data packets associated with the transaction have been received by the receiver based on the one or more acknowledgements for the one or more additional data packets.

30. A flow control module coupled to a sender for communicating a plurality of data packets associated with a transaction from a sender to a receiver over a network connection, the flow control module configured to perform the operations:

observing the data packets associated with the transaction;

determining when the last data packet associated with the transaction has been transmitted by the sender; and

after a last data packet of the transaction has been transmitted, transmitting one or more additional data packets to the receiver, wherein the one or more additional data packets cause the generation of one or more acknowledgements if received by the receiver.

31. The flow control module of claim 30, the flow control module further configured to perform the operations:

receiving the one or more acknowledgements for the one or more additional data packets; and

determining whether the data packets associated with the transaction have been received by the receiver based on the one or more acknowledgements for the one or more additional data packets.

32. The flow control module of claim 31, wherein if the last data packets associated with the transaction are determined to have been received but the acknowledgements for the data packets have not been received, the flow control module generates an acknowledgement for the data packets and sends the generated acknowledgement to the sender.

33. The flow control module of claim 31, wherein if the last data packets associated with the transaction are determined to have not been received, the flow control module causes the sender to retransmit the data packets not received.

34. The flow control module of claim 33, wherein the flow control module causes the sender to retransmit the data packets not received by generating a SACK packet that shows which data packets were not received and sending the SACK packet to the sender.

35. The flow control module of claim 30, wherein the flow control module is implemented within the sender.