TELEMETRY STREAM PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS AND OPTIMIZATION

• US 20080043716A1
• Filed: 08/16/2006
• Published: 02/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Toombs, Douglas, Greaves, Jon D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,601,155 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/351
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/121 by minimising delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 9/00 Arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station, in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom

Abstract

A computer-based method for improving the timely delivery of telemetry or other application-to-application data. A telemetry routing table is stored in memory that includes entries for a plurality of communication pathways for delivering a telemetry message from a telemetry application running on a first computer system to a telemetry reception application running on a second computer system. The table entries include a latency and a measured data delivery rate for transmittal of data over the corresponding pathway. The method includes generating a telemetry message having a particular data payload using the telemetry application and then selecting one of the communication pathways using the telemetry application based on a size of the data payload, the latencies, and the data delivery rates for the pathways (e.g., determining a total transit time for the payload for each pathway and selecting the pathway corresponding to the shortest transit time).

Claims

1. A system for controlling communications between two applications, comprising:

a source application running on a first computer system;

a destination application running on a second computer system, wherein the first and second computer system are linked by a network;

a routing table defining a plurality of routes for communications between the source application and the destination application, each of the routes being defined by an exit path for the source application from the first computer system and a delivery interface for the destination application at the second computer system, wherein the source application generates a message having a size and wherein the source application selects one of the routes for transmission of the message based on the size and based on transmission performance parameters stored in the routing table for the routes.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the source application is a telemetry data generation application and the size of the message comprises telemetry data and wherein the destination application comprises a telemetry reception application,

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the exit path and the delivery interface are each defined in the routing table with network addresses, whereby the selected route for transmission comprises the network address of one of the exit paths and the network address of one of the delivery interfaces.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the transmission performance parameters comprise throughput values for each of the routes and wherein the source application selects the one of the routes by determining a transit time for the message based on a product of the throughput values and the messages size.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the throughput values stored in the routing table for the routes are values determined for prior messages transmitted on each of the routes between the source application and the destination application.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the transmission performance parameters further comprise a latency for each of the routes and wherein the transit time for each of the routes further includes the corresponding latency.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the latency stored in the routing table for the routes are latencies determined for prior messages transmitted on each of the routes between the source application and the destination application.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the transmission performance parameter comprise an availability parameter indicating whether the route is available for transmitting the message and wherein the source application only considers the routes for which the availability parameter indicates the route is in service.

9. A telemetry communication method, comprising:

storing a telemetry routing table in memory having entries for a plurality of communication pathways for delivering a telemetry message from a telemetry application running on a first computer system to a telemetry reception application running on a second computer system accessible by the first computer system via one or more communications networks, wherein each of the entries comprises a latency and a measured data delivery rate;

with the telemetry application, generating a telemetry message with a data payload; and

selecting one of the communication pathways using the telemetry application based on a size of the data payload, the latencies, and the data delivery rates.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the selecting comprises determining a transit time for the data payload for each of the communication pathways based on the size of the data payload and the data delivery rate and based on the latency and wherein the selected one of the communication pathways has a shortest one of the determined transit times.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising periodically determining whether each of the communication pathways is available for data transmission and storing the determined availability in the corresponding entries in the telemetry routing table and wherein the selecting further comprises considering only communication pathways with positive ones of the determined availabilities.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein each of the communication pathways is defined in the telemetry routing table by an exit path and a destination point.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein each of the entries includes a first network address for the exit path and a second network address for the destination point and wherein the first network address corresponds to the first computer system and the second network address corresponds to the second computer system.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising operating the telemetry application to insert a timestamp in the telemetry message and to inject the telemetry message into the presentation layer of network protocol using the selected one of the communication pathways.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising with the telemetry reception application, receiving the telemetry message, determining a latency and a data delivery rate for the received telemetry message, and providing the determined latency and data delivery rate to the telemetry application.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising updating the entry for the selection one of the communication pathways using the determined latency and data delivery rate from the telemetry reception application, whereby transmission performance data for selected or utilized ones of the communication pathways is periodically updated.

17. A method of selectively transmitting a message between applications, comprising:

generating a payload of digital data for a message with a source application for delivery to a destination application;

measuring a size of the payload;

accessing a routing table in memory to determine available communication paths from the source application to the destination application and for each of the available communication paths, stored values for transmission latency and data delivery rate;

determining a transit time for the payload for each of the available communication paths based on the size of the payload and the values for transmission latency and data delivery rate;

selecting one of the available communication paths based on the determined transit times; and

transmitting the message using the selected one of the available communication paths.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein for each of the available communication paths the routing table comprises a network address for an exit path from a system running the source application to a communications network and a network address for a delivery interface for the destination application.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising prior to transmitting the message bundling a timestamp using a clock local to the source application in the message, receiving the transmitted message with the destination application, and generating a maintenance message for delivery to the source application by determining a latency and a data delivery rate for the selected one of the available communication paths using the timestamp in the received message.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the transmitting of the message comprises injecting the message into a presentation layer of a network protocol using the source application at an application layer of the network protocol based on an exit path defined in the selected one of the available communication paths.