Selective compression for network connections

• US 8,326,984 B1
• Filed: 08/18/2011
• Issued: 12/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: F5 Networks, Inc. (F5 Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: F5 Networks, Inc. (F5 Incorporated)
• Inventors: Rothstein, Jesse A., Mukerji, Arindum
• Primary Examiner(s): DENNISON, JERRY B
• Application Number:
  US13/212,841
• Time in Patent Office: 474 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224, 709/246, 709/247, 718/105
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals

Abstract

A system, apparatus, and method selectively provides content compression to a client based, in part, on whether the network connection from the client is determined to be a high latency, low-bandwidth connection. The present invention gathers one or more network metrics associated with the connection from the client. In one embodiment, the metrics include estimated TCP metrics, including smoothed round trip time, maximum segment size (MSS), and bandwidth delay product (BWDP). These estimated network metrics are employed to make an application layer decision of whether the client connection is a high latency, low-bandwidth connection. If it is, then content may be selectively compressed virtually on the fly for transfer over the network connection. In one embodiment, the selective compression uses a content encoding compression feature of the HTTP protocol standard.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

at least two or more servers for providing content over a network; and

a first traffic management device (TMD) having memory and one or more central processing units to perform actions, including;

determining a plurality of network metrics for communications through at least one client device/gateway combination for a client device; and

sending the plurality of network metrics to a second TMD operating on another one or more central processing units, the second TMD performing actions, including;

combining results of evaluations of each of the plurality of network metrics to a different threshold value into a single network connection characteristic for at least one client device/gateway combination; and

based on whether the combined results indicate that a communications with the second TMD is a low-bandwidth connection, selectively providing compressed content to the client device through the associated gateway.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the determined plurality of different network metrics includes at least a maximum segment size (MSS) associated with network connections with the client device and each of a plurality of gateways.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the second TMD is configured to select from the servers to provide the compressed content based on one of the servers being configured to provide low bandwidth content for network connections having a low bandwidth network connection characteristic, and at least a second of the servers being configured to provide high bandwidth content for network connections having a high bandwidth network connection characteristic.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the first TMD is further configured to redirect the client device to communicate with the second TMD based on one of a latency or bandwidth characteristic of a communications with the client device.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the redirection is to a selected one of a plurality of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses associated with the second TMD, the selection of the IP address being based on the latency or bandwidth characteristic.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the second TMD is configured to selectively compress the content.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the servers are geographically located in different locations, and selectively providing the compressed content further comprises selecting one of the servers based on the server'"'"'s geographic location and the combined results.

8. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory device for storing computer instructions; and

at least one processor for executing the computer instructions to perform actions, including;

receiving a plurality of network metrics associated with each network connection between a client device and a gateway combination for a plurality of different gateways;

evaluating each of the plurality of network metrics to determine whether the respective network metric exceeds a threshold value for a given client device and gateway combination;

combining a plurality of results from the evaluations to generate a single network connection characteristic for each of the client device and gateway combinations; and

based on whether the combined results indicate that a network connection is a low-bandwidth connection for a given client device and gateway combination, selectively providing compressed content to the client device using the given client device and gateway combination.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising:

at least one or more other processors for executing computer instructions, including;

seeding at least network metric about a network connection for at least one client device/gateway combination;

continuously collecting additional networking information about the network connection while the network connection is open;

employing the additional networking information to refine each of the plurality of network metrics about the network connection; and

sending the refined plurality of estimated network metrics over a network to the at least one processor.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein selectively providing compressed content comprises compressing HTTP dynamic content at the at least one processor.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein selectively providing the compressed content further comprises selecting a server from a plurality of servers based on the server'"'"'s geographic location and the combined results.

12. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein selectively providing the compressed content further comprises selecting from one of a plurality of servers to provide the compressed content based on at least one of the plurality of servers being configured to provide low bandwidth high latency content for network connections having a low bandwidth high latency network connection characteristic, and at least a second of the plurality of servers being configured to provide high bandwidth content for network connections having at least a high bandwidth network connection characteristic.

13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the network metrics includes at least two of a round trip time (RTT), maximum segment size (MSS), and a bandwidth delay product (BWDP).

14. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein combining the results of evaluations further comprises:

comparing at least two network metrics to different threshold values;

obtaining a result for each of the comparisons; and

combining the results of the comparisons to generate the single network connection characteristic.

15. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the single network connection characteristic further indicates whether the at least one client device/gateway combination is a high latency and low bandwidth network connection.

16. A processor based method, the method comprising:

receiving at a first processor, from a second processor, a plurality of network metrics for at least one client device and a gateway combination;

combining results of evaluations of each of the plurality of network metrics to a different threshold value into a single network connection characteristic for the at least one client device/gateway combination; and

based on whether the combined results indicate that the network connection is a low-bandwidth high latency connection, selectively providing compressed content to the client device.

17. The processor based method of claim 16, wherein the selectively providing compressed content further comprises varying the compression algorithm or level of compression based on the combined results.

18. The processor based method of claim 16, wherein the client device is redirected to a selected one of a plurality of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses associated with a third processor, the selected IP address being selected based in part on the combined results.

19. The processor based method of claim 16, wherein selectively providing compressed content comprises compressing HTTP dynamic content at the first processor.

20. The processor based method of claim 16, wherein selectively providing compressed content to the client device further comprises selecting a server from a plurality of servers from which to obtain the content based on the combined results and a geographic location of the servers.