ACCELERATING DATA COMMUNICATION USING TUNNELS

• US 20110069715A1
• Filed: 11/30/2010
• Published: 03/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/18/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fortinet Inc.
• Original Assignee: Fortinet Inc.
• Inventors: Luo, Wenping, Huang, Tao, Pan, Yixin, Li, Hongwei
• Granted Patent: US 8,503,332 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/401
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• 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 47/193 at the transport layer, e.g. TCP related
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/029 Firewall traversal, e.g. tunnelling or, creating pinholes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/168 above the transport layer

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for increasing application performance and accelerating data communications in a WAN environment. According to one embodiment, packets are received at a flow classification module operating at the Internet Protocol (IP) layer of a first wide area network (WAN) acceleration device via a shared connection-oriented tunnel, which is operable to convey application layer data for connection-oriented applications between WAN acceleration devices. Packets that are classified as being associated with an existing connection-oriented flow are passed to a WAN socket operating at the transport layer. Based on the application protocol, the packets are passed to an application handler of multiple application handlers operating at the application layer each of which implements one or more application acceleration techniques for a particular poorly behaved WAN protocol. The existing connection-oriented flow is securely accelerated by performing one or more application acceleration techniques and applying one or more security functions.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a flow classification module executing on a first wide area network (WAN) acceleration device at an Internet Protocol (IP) layer of a protocol stack of the first WAN acceleration device, packets from a second WAN acceleration device via a shared connection-oriented tunnel established between the first WAN acceleration device and the second WAN acceleration device, the shared connection-oriented tunnel operable to convey application layer data for connection-oriented applications between the first WAN acceleration device and the second WAN acceleration device;

after classifying, by the flow classification module, the packets as being associated with an existing connection-oriented flow, passing the packets to a WAN socket executing on the first WAN acceleration device at a transport layer of the protocol stack;

based on an application protocol with which the packets are associated, passing, by the WAN socket, the packets to an application handler of a plurality of application handlers executing on the first WAN acceleration device at an application layer of the protocol stack, each of the plurality of application handlers implementing one or more application acceleration techniques for a particular poorly behaved WAN protocol; and

securely accelerating the existing connection-oriented flow, by the application handler, by performing the one or more application acceleration techniques and applying one or more security functions.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more application acceleration techniques include one or more of (i) transaction prediction, (ii) pre-population and (iii) classification of data streams into different stages to facilitate one or more of data reduction, data compression and quality of service.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the classification of data streams into different stages includes the application handler classifying and tagging a data stream as being at a stage in which associated data is unlikely repeatable, repeatable but not stable or stable.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising applying a hierarchical data reference reduction algorithm and a variable length data reference reduction algorithm to data tagged as stable.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising applying a memory based data reference reduction algorithm to data tagged as repeatable but not stable.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising foregoing application of data reference reduction algorithms to data tagged as unlikely repeatable.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing transport acceleration techniques used to improve performance of Transport Control Protocol (TCP) across high latency or high loss links including one or more of TCP connection pooling, TCP window scaling, selective acknowledgement (SACK), round-trip measurement and HighSpeed TCP.

8. A program storage device readable by one or more processors of a network device, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the one or more processors to perform method steps for securely accelerating wide area network (WAN) traffic, said method steps comprising:

receiving, by a flow classification module of the network device operable at an Internet Protocol (IP) layer of a protocol stack of a the network device, packets from a peer WAN acceleration device via a shared connection-oriented tunnel established between the network device and the peer WAN acceleration device, the shared connection-oriented tunnel operable to convey application layer data for connection-oriented applications between the network device and the peer WAN acceleration device;

after classifying, by the flow classification module, the packets as being associated with an existing connection-oriented flow, passing the packets to a WAN socket of the network device operable at a transport layer of the protocol stack;

based on an application protocol with which the packets are associated, passing, by the WAN socket, the packets to an application handler of a plurality of application handlers operable at an application layer of the protocol stack, each of the plurality of application handlers implementing one or more application acceleration techniques for a particular poorly behaved WAN protocol; and

accelerating the existing connection-oriented flow, by the application handler, by performing the one or more application acceleration techniques.

9. The program storage device of claim 8, wherein the one or more application acceleration techniques include one or more of (i) transaction prediction, (ii) pre-population and (iii) classification of data streams into different stages to facilitate one or more of data reduction, data compression and quality of service.

10. The program storage device of claim 9, wherein the classification of data streams into different stages includes the application handler classifying and tagging a data stream as being at a stage in which associated data is unlikely repeatable, repeatable but not stable or stable.

11. The program storage device of claim 10, further comprising applying a hierarchical data reference reduction algorithm and a variable length data reference reduction algorithm to data tagged as stable.

12. The program storage device of claim 10, further comprising applying a memory based data reference reduction algorithm to data tagged as repeatable but not stable.

13. The program storage device of claim 10, further comprising foregoing application of data reference reduction algorithms to data tagged as unlikely repeatable.