Sustaining session connections

• US 8,364,774 B2
• Filed: 06/13/2011
• Issued: 01/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Undery, James, Markaryan, Mark
• Primary Examiner(s): Serrao, Ranodhi
• Assistant Examiner(s): Gupta, Muktesh G
• Application Number:
  US13/159,146
• Publication Number:
  US 20110246595A1
• Time in Patent Office: 596 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 709/207
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/23 Reliability checks, e.g. acknowledgments or fault reporting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/145 avoiding end of session, e.g. keep-alive, heartbeats, resumption message or wake-up for inactive or interrupted session
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

In an embodiment, techniques for sustaining session connections are provided. The techniques send heartbeat messages when not sending a message may cause the session connection to close because of a timeout condition. Heartbeat messages are valid transport layer messages that will be ignored by protocols at higher levels of a data communications stack. As an example, the techniques may send a TCP message containing only a carriage return and line feed (“CRLF”) in its payload. Because the TCP layer considers a message containing only a CRLF to be a valid TCP message, intermediary computing devices such as proxy servers may not interpret heartbeat messages as “keep alive” messages, and may sustain session connections.

Claims

1. A method performed by a proxy computing device for sustaining a session connection between client and server computing devices, the method comprising:

receiving a heartbeat message at the proxy computing device from the client computing device, the client and server computing device having an open session using a session initiation protocol, and the heartbeat message being a valid message of a transport layer protocol and ignored by the session initiation protocol;

resetting a message clock of the session connection between the client and server computing devices;

transmitting the heartbeat message from the proxy computing device to the server computing device, whereby sending the heartbeat message sustains the session connection between the client and server computing devices; and

a period of time after receiving the heartbeat message, receiving a second heartbeat message at the proxy computing device from the client computing device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein resetting the message clock occurs after transmitting the heartbeat message to the server computing device from the proxy computing device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the heartbeat message comprises white space characters.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the white space characters include one or more of a linefeed and a carriage return.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the transport layer protocol is TCP/IP.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the message clock measures time elapsed since a previous message was sent or received.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the message clock relates to messages sent or received by a transport layer of a data communications stack.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the proxy computing device comprises an edge proxy server.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the client computing device resides outside of a network and the server computing device resides within the network.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising, after dropping the session connection, receiving at the proxy computing device a REGISTER message from one of the client and server computing devices.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether a time interval is exceeded by the period of time.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising, upon determining that the period of time exceeds the time interval, dropping the session connection between the client computing device and the server computing device.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising, upon determining that the period of time does not exceed the time interval, resetting the message clock, thereby sustaining the session connection.

14. A proxy computing device communicatively coupled between client and server computing devices and configured to sustain a session connection between the client and server computing devices, the proxy computing device comprising:

a first component executable on the proxy computing device that receives a message via a connection with the client computing device;

a second component executable on the proxy computing device that transmits the received message to the server computing device; and

a third component executable on the proxy computing device that determines whether the received message is a heartbeat message, the heartbeat message being a valid message of a transport layer protocol and ignored by a session initiation protocol, and upon determining that the received message is a heartbeat message, resets a message clock of the session connection between the client and server computing devices, thereby sustaining the session connection between the client and server computing devices

wherein, a period of time after receiving the message, the first component receives a second message via a connection with the client computing device, the second message determined by the third component to be a second heartbeat message.

15. The proxy computing device of claim 14, wherein the proxy computing device comprises an edge proxy server.

21. The proxy computing device of claim 14, wherein the third component is configured to determine whether a time interval is exceeded by the period of time.

16. A method performed by a server computing device for sustaining a session connection, comprising:

establishing a session with a client computing device using a session initiation protocol, the session having a session connection; and

receiving a heartbeat message using a transport layer protocol from the client computing device via a proxy computing device, wherein the session initiation protocol is employed by a higher layer of a data communications stack than the second protocol, and wherein the heartbeat message is a valid message of the transport layer protocol and ignored by the session initiation protocol, and receiving the heartbeat message sustains the session connection at the server computing device; and

a period of time after receiving the heartbeat message, receiving a second heartbeat message at the proxy computing device from the client computing device;

wherein the session is established and sustained between the client computing device and the server computing device through the proxy computing device, and wherein after receiving the heartbeat message at the server computing device from the client computing device, a message clock of the session connection is reset prior to receiving the second heartbeat message.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the heartbeat message is received when a period of time elapses after a message of the session initiation protocol is received, the period of time being less than a timeout value.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the message clock of the connection is managed at the proxy computing device.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the message clock is reset by the proxy computing device.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the proxy computing device comprises an edge proxy server.

22. The method of claim 16, further comprising determining whether a time interval is exceeded by the period of time.