Method and system for efficiently reducing graphical display data for transmission over a low bandwidth transport protocol mechanism

• US 7,502,784 B2
• Filed: 03/03/2006
• Issued: 03/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Original Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Inventors: Collins, Henry
• Primary Examiner(s): Le; Uyen T.
• Application Number:
  US11/368,235
• Publication Number:
  US 20060153423A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,103 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 6, 707/10, 707/101, 707/104.1, 711/118, 709/247, 709/217, 382/232
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1454 involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/131 Protocols for games, networked simulations or virtual reality
• 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 67/289 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data consumer application, e.g. in same machine, in same home or in same sub-network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5651 Reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

The present invention improves the performance of distributed systems by reducing the amount of graphical data transmitted between an application server and a thin client. The encoding technique used for graphical data is adapted in response to the repetitiveness of the graphical data during a particular client-server session. Indexes are maintained that are indicative of this repetitiveness and which identify a particular location in the client'"'"'s cache memory storing the graphical data. Where the index is not found, but a fuzzy key indicates a strong likelihood that the graphical object is located at the client, the client'"'"'s persistent storage memory is searched for a file name corresponding to the fuzzy key and which stores the graphical object therein.

Claims

1. A method of reducing the amount of data transmitted from a server to a client via a communications network, the method being performed at the client and comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a protocol stream, the protocol stream including an indicia of graphical data, a command associated with the graphical data, and a plurality of other commands;

(b) searching for the graphical data using the indicia;

(c) upon failing to locate the graphical data, storing the command associated with the graphical data together with the plurality of other commands in a queue;

(d) receiving the graphical data;

(e) processing the received graphical data using the associated command;

(f) processing at least some of the plurality of other commands in the queue;

(g) queuing a command associated with the graphical data together with a plurality of other commands in a queue;

(h) determining whether the queued command associated with the graphical data supersedes at least one of the plurality of other queued command; and

(i) removing the at least one of the plurality of other queued commands from the queue upon determining that the queued command associated with the graphical data supersedes the at least one of the plurality of other queued commands.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the graphical data corresponds to an encoded bitmap.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the graphical data corresponds to a glyph.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the graphical data corresponds to a strip.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the graphical data corresponds to an off-screen surface.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicia is indicative of a memory location in a cache coupled to the client, the client having previously stored a prior transmission of the graphical data at the memory location.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the size of the graphical data is no greater than a maximum cache object size.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the queued command associated with the graphical data is placed in the queue after the at least one of the plurality of other queued commands is placed in the queue.

9. A system for reducing the amount of data transmitted from a server to a client via a communications network, the system comprising:

a client agent operating on the client and coupled to the server via the communications network, wherein the client agent;

(a) receives a protocol stream, the protocol stream including an indicia of graphical data, a command associated with the graphical data, and a plurality of other commands;

(b) searches for the graphical data using the indicia;

(c) upon failing to locate the graphical data, stores the command associated with the graphical data together with the plurality of other commands in a queue;

(d) receives the graphical data;

(e) processes the received graphical data using the associated command;

(f) processes at least some of the plurality of other commands in the queue;

(g) queues a command associated with the graphical data together with a plurality of other commands in a queue;

(h) determines whether the queued command associated with the graphical data supersedes at least one of the plurality of other queued command; and

(i) removes the at least one of the plurality of other queued commands from the queue upon determining that the queued command associated with the graphical data supersedes the at least one of the plurality of other queued commands.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the graphical data corresponds to an encoded bitmap.

11. The system of claim 9 wherein the graphical data corresponds to a glyph.

12. The system of claim 9 wherein the graphical data corresponds to a strip.

13. The system of claim 9 wherein the graphical data corresponds to an off-screen surface.

14. The system of claim 9 wherein the indicia is indicative of a memory location in a cache coupled to the client, the client having previously stored a prior transmission of the graphical data at the memory location.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the size of the graphical data is no greater than a maximum cache object size.

16. The system of claim 9, wherein said plurality of commands are issued by an application executing on the server;

and said commands are analyzed to determine whether they should be selected for further transmission to the client.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein selected commands are encoded and packaged into a protocol package stream for eventual transmission to the client;

wherein the packet stream undergoes further compression prior to transmission.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein prior to the further compression of the packet stream, repeatability is built into the packet stream to maximize the efficiency of the compression algorithm.

19. The system of claim 9, wherein the queued command associated with the graphical data is placed in the queue after the at least one of the plurality of other queued commands is placed in the queue.