System and method for transferring data in high latency firewalled networks

• US 7,526,557 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2004
• Issued: 04/28/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Signiant Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Signiant Incorporated
• Inventors: Bowler, Ken
• Primary Examiner(s): Avellino; Joseph E
• Application Number:
  US10/879,586
• Publication Number:
  US 20060047824A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,763 Days
• Field of Search: 709227-229, 709217-219, 726 11- 13
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/14 Multichannel or multilink protocols

Abstract

A system and method are provided for establishing multiple parallel connections between a client and a server on a single server port. Data may be transferred on the multiple parallel connections between the server and the client through an opening in a network firewall that corresponds to the single server port. A control process may accept N connection requests from a client then transfer each accepted connection to a relay process that manages that connection. Each relay process may relay data between the server and the client via the single server port. A single collective data transfer may be executed on the N parallel connections, thereby increasing throughput and data transfer rates. If the data transfer rate is primarily limited by network latency, using N parallel connections provides the advantage of increasing the data transfer rate by approximately a factor of N.

Claims

1. A system for increasing data transfer rates in a network comprising:

a networked server device protected by a firewall and having a plurality of communication ports, wherein the plurality of communication ports comprise a communication port that receives connection requests through an existing opening in the firewall, the networked server device comprising;

a control process component configured to;

(a) listen for the connection requests on the communication port,

(b) in response to a first connection request from a first client via the communication port, establish a first connection to the first client on the communication port,

(c) in response to a second connection request from the first client via the communication port, establish a second connection to the first client on the communication port, and

(d) cause data to be transmitted using the first connection on the communication port and the second connection on the communication port; and

a relay process component configured to;

(i) receive, from the control process component, a first transferred connection, wherein the first transferred connection is transferred from the first connection, wherein the relay process component manages the first transferred connection on the communication port,

(ii) receive, from the control process component, a second transferred connection from the control process component, wherein the second transferred connection is transferred from the second connection, wherein the relay process component manages the second transferred connection on the communication port,

(iii) establish a first relay connection internal to the firewall to one or more server processes, wherein the relay process component relays first communication between the one or more server processes and the first client via the first transferred connection on the communication port and the first relay connection, whereby the firewall uses the existing opening in the firewall to facilitate the first communication between the first client and the one or more server processes, and

(iv) establish a second relay connection internal to the firewall to the one or more server processes, wherein the relay process component relays second communication between the one or more server processes and the first client via the second transferred connection on the at least one communication port and the second relay connection, whereby the firewall uses the existing opening in the firewall to facilitate the second communication between the first client and the one or more server processes.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first relay connection is established on one or more first communication ports, whereby the firewall need not be aware of communication protocols used to establish the first relay connection on the one or more first communication ports as a result of the first relay connection being internal to the firewall.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the second relay connection is established on one or more second communication ports, whereby the firewall need not be aware of communication protocols used to establish the second relay connection on the one or more second communication ports as a result of the second relay connection being internal to the firewall.

4. The system of claim 3, the control process component further configured to:

in response to a first request by the first client, via the first connection, to initiate a number of connections for communication, inform the one or more server processes of the first request for the number of connections;

receive a response from the one or more server processes, the response including a list of ports among the plurality of ports that are available for communication, wherein a number of ports among the list of ports corresponds to the number of connections requested by the first client;

and communicate the list of ports to the first client.

5. The system of claim 4, the control process component further configured to:

in response to second request by the first client, via the first connection, to connect to a particular port among the list of ports, inform the relay process component of the particular port requested by the first client, wherein the relay process component establishes the first relay process on the particular port.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the relay process component relays data in parallel between the one or more server processes and the first client on the first transferred connection at the server on the communication port and the second transferred connection at the server on the communication port.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the control process component accepts the first connection and the second connection in response to at least two requests from the first client to be connected to the one or more server processes, the at least two requests from the first client received by the control process component on the communication port at the server.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the first connection is transferred to the first transferred connection by inheritance, and wherein the second connection is transferred to the second transferred connection by inheritance.