Method and system for data communications in cloud computing architecture

• US 8,601,097 B2
• Filed: 02/22/2011
• Issued: 12/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NComputing Global, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Ncomputing Incorporated (ZeroDesktop, Inc.)
• Inventors: Sartori, Gabriele
• Primary Examiner(s): BIAGINI, CHRISTOPHER D
• Application Number:
  US13/032,387
• Publication Number:
  US 20110208837A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,015 Days
• Field of Search: 709/219
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/028 by filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/60 Software-defined switches

Abstract

Example embodiments of the present disclosure concern a system and method for selectively intercepting communications in a cloud computing environment by receiving communications from one or more thin-client terminal systems connected via a local area network, determining one or more recipients of each received communication, and based on a determination that the one or more recipients of a communication include only thin-client terminal systems connected via the local area network, intercepting the communication and preventing the communication from being transmitted to a central server connected to the local area network via a wide area network, storing the communication, and forwarding the communication to the one or more recipients connected to the local area network.

Claims

1. A data distribution device to selectively intercept communications in a cloud computing architecture, the data distribution device comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more memories in communication with the one or more processors, the one or more memories storing;

interceptor software in communication with the one or more processors and configured to cause the one or more processors to selectively intercept data streams transmitted by at least one thin-client terminal system communicatively connected to the data distribution device via a local area network, the data distribution device also communicatively connected to a central server via a wide area network;

analyzer software in communication with the one or more processors and configured to cause the one or more processors to analyze the data streams to identify characteristics of the data streams, the characteristics including at least one destination of the data streams,

the interceptor software selectively intercepting a data stream that does not have the central server as a destination of the data stream and preventing the data stream from being transmitted to the central server;

a buffer configured to store the selectively intercepted data stream; and

forwarding software in communication with the one or more processors and configured to cause the one or more processors to inject the selectively intercepted data stream in a communication from the central server to a thin-client terminal system identified as a destination in the selectively intercepted data stream.

2. The data distribution device of claim 1, wherein the forwarding software is further configured to:

for the data streams having the central server as a destination and a bandwidth intensity above a predetermined threshold, transcode the data streams from a first encoding format to a second encoding scheme, the second encoding format being smaller than the first encoding format; and

transmit the transcoded data stream to the central server.

3. The data distribution device of claim 1, wherein the data streams are multimedia data streams generated by a videoconferencing application.

4. The data distribution device of claim 1, the one or more memories further comprising transcoding software configured to transcode the selectively intercepted data stream from a first encoding format to a second encoding format, the second encoding format being smaller than the first encoding format.

5. The data distribution device of claim 1, wherein the forwarding software is further configured to transmit an empty tagged data stream to the central server in place of the selectively intercepted data stream.

6. The data distribution device of claim 1, wherein the interceptor software is configured to prevent the selectively intercepted data stream from being transmitted to the central server by removing an uplink stream in the selectively intercepted data stream.

7. The data distribution device of claim 1, wherein the interceptor software receives an instruction from the central server to selectively intercept the data stream.

8. The data distribution device of claim 1, wherein the analyzer software is configured to analyze the data streams by further determining a setting of a flag in the data streams, wherein the interceptor software selectively intercepts certain ones of the data streams having the flag set.

9. The data distribution device of claim 1, wherein the forwarding software is further configured to broadcast the selectively intercepted data stream to a subset of the at least one thin-client terminal system identified as the destination of the selectively intercepted data stream.

10. A method of selectively intercepting communications in a cloud computing environment, the method comprising:

receiving communications from at least one thin-client terminal system connected via a local area network;

determining at least one recipient of each communication; and

based on a determination that the at least one recipient of a communication includes only thin-client terminal systems connected via the local area network;

intercepting the communication and preventing the communication from being transmitted to a central server connected to the local area network via a wide area network;

storing the communication; and

forwarding the stored communication to the at least one recipient connected to the local area network, forwarding the stored communication including injecting the communication into a data stream transmitted from the central server to the at least one recipient.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

based on a determination that the at least one recipient of the communication includes a device remote to the local area network,

forwarding the communication to recipients connected to the local area network;

reducing a size of the communication by transcoding the communication from a first encoding format to a second encoding format; and

transmitting the transcoded communication to the central server via the wide area network.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

substituting the intercepted communication with an empty tagged communication; and

transmitting the empty tagged communication to the central server.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the communication is a multimedia data stream generated by a videoconferencing application.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising receiving an instruction from the central server to selectively intercept the communication received from the at least one thin-client terminal system.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising analyzing the each communication to identify a setting of a flag, wherein the each communication having the flag set is intercepted.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein forwarding the stored communication to the at least one recipient connected to the local area network comprises broadcasting the communication to the at least one recipient connected to the local area network.