Message send queue reordering based on priority

• US 8,065,396 B2
• Filed: 01/12/2010
• Issued: 11/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Knowles, Michael, Tapuska, David
• Primary Examiner(s): STRANGE, AARON N
• Application Number:
  US12/686,001
• Publication Number:
  US 20100146067A1
• Time in Patent Office: 679 Days
• Field of Search: 709/207, 709/219, 709/232, 709/240, 370/229, 370/230, 370/235, 718/103
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/226 Delivery according to priorities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context

Abstract

A method and system for communicating serialized data provides a mechanism for ordering the data in response to a priority. In an embodiment, a server sending the data uses the priority to order the data in a message send queue for sending the data to a requesting device. The server may comprise a gateway and the second device a wireless device communicating with the gateway. The wireless device may send a priority indication in association with a request for the data to facilitate the ordering.

Claims

1. A method of ordering a message send queue of a communication connection in a server sending respective response data to a wireless communication device in response to a plurality of requests from the wireless communication device, the method comprising the steps of:

placing data comprising a response to a first request in the send queue of the communication connection and serially transmitting the data in said send queue to the wireless device;

receiving a second request from the wireless device, said second request being determined to have a respective relative priority that is higher than a priority of the first request; and

placing at least some data comprising a response to the second request in the send queue of the communication connection ahead of at least some of the data comprising the response to the first request still in the queue and serially transmitting the data in said send queue to the wireless device;

wherein the communication connection having the send queue for serially transmitting data is established between the server and the wireless device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein it comprises the steps of:

receiving a third request from the wireless device, said third request being determined to have a respective relative priority that is higher than the priority of the second request; and

placing at least some data comprising a response to the third request in the send queue of the communication connection ahead of at least some of the data comprising the response to the second request still in the queue and serially transmitting the data in the queue to the wireless device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein it comprises periodically placing some of the data comprising the first response ahead of any data in the queue and serially transmitting the data in the queue to the wireless device in order to avoid a timing out of a connection between the server and the wireless device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a respective relative priority comprises evaluating a priority indication of a request, said priority indication defining the relative priority of the response data for that request.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving said plurality of requests wherein at least some of said requests comprise a respective priority indication for ordering the sending of their respective response data relative to other response data.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving the respective response data for sending via said message queue in response to the respective request.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the message queue comprises a first in first out (FIFO) queue and wherein ordering comprises placing the respective response data at one of the ends of the message queue in response to their respective relative priorities.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the server receives a priority indication for at least one of the requests from the wireless device.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the server receives a priority indication from the wireless device for any request deemed to require immediate action.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the priority indication received by the server for each subsequent request requiring immediate action has a value comprising an incremented value of a last such request.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the server is a wireless gateway server and wherein the method comprises formatting the response data for transmitting in accordance with a wireless communications protocol.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the data comprising the response to the first request comprises a plurality of data packets, and the placing comprises placing some of the data comprising the response to the second request in the send queue of the communication connection ahead of at least one data packet of the data comprising the response to the first request.

13. A wireless gateway for communicating with a wireless communication device coupled to the gateway via a wireless network, the wireless communication device and wireless gateway communicating serially via a communication connection established between the wireless device and the wireless gateway, the communication connection having a send queue for serially transmitting data, the wireless gateway comprising a processor configured to execute instructions to cause the wireless gateway to:

place data comprising a response to a first request in the send queue of the communication connection and serially transmit the data in said send queue to the wireless device;

receive a second request from the wireless device, said second request being determined to have a respective relative priority that is higher than a priority of the first request; and

place at least some data comprising a response to the second request in the send queue of the communication connection ahead of at least some of the data comprising the response to the first request still in the queue and serially transmit the data in said send queue to the wireless device.

14. The wireless gateway of claim 13, wherein the gateway is coupled to at least one further device configured for providing response data and wherein the gateway is adapted to obtain the response data from the second device in response to the received requests.

15. A server for communicating with a wireless communication device, the wireless communication device and the server communicating serially via a communication connection established between the wireless device and the server, the communication connection having a send queue for serially transmitting data, wherein the server comprises a processor configured to execute instructions to cause the server to:

place data from the server comprising a response to a first request in the send queue of the communication connection and serially transmit the data in said send queue to the wireless device;

receive a second request from the wireless device, said second request being determined to have a respective relative priority that is higher than a priority of the first request; and

place some of the data comprising the response to the second request in the send queue of the communication connection ahead of at least some of the data comprising the response to the first request still in the queue and serially transmitting the data in said send queue to the wireless device.