Recovery of disconnected channels over a reliable protocol

• US 8,793,384 B2
• Filed: 08/22/2008
• Issued: 07/29/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Stoyanov, Vladimir K., Qiu, Kan
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, PHUOC H
• Application Number:
  US12/197,062
• Publication Number:
  US 20100049785A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,167 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/217, 709/219, 709/227
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1607 Details of the supervisory signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0811 by checking connectivity

Abstract

Example embodiments of the present disclosure provide techniques for recovering from a channel failure at the protocol layer. At least a portion of data that is sent from a source to a target across the channel can be stored in a communication protocol layer buffer. In the event that the channel fails and is reestablished the target can send a signal indicating how much data it actually received. The signal can be used by the source to determine which portion of the data in the buffer was lost en route to the target and the lost portion can be resent.

Claims

1. A terminal server method comprising:

sending data to a client using a network protocol;

storing at least a portion of the sent data in a buffer wherein the buffer stores the data in a format different from the format used in the network protocol;

determining that a connection to the client failed;

reestablishing a connection to the client;

receiving a signal from the client identifying an amount of data that was successfully received by the client;

determining that the client failed to receive a specific portion of the data stored in the buffer based on the signal received from the client; and

sending the specific portion of the data stored in the buffer to the client.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

instantiating a remote desktop protocol stack instance in response to receiving a connection request from the client, wherein the buffer is included in a terminal server layer of the remote protocol stack instance.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing information that identifies the amount of the data that was sent to the client.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the data includes data from a plurality of data sources and the buffer includes a plurality of buffers, each buffer associated with a specific data source of the plurality of data sources.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending a signal to the client identifying an amount of data that was successfully received from the client; and

receiving resent data from the client.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein reestablishing the connection to the client further comprises:

determining that the connection was reestablished within a predetermined amount of time.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein reestablishing the connection to the client further comprises:

sending a signal indicative of a request for data to a redirection driver associated with the source of the data.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein reestablishing the connection to the client further comprises:

sending, via the redirection driver, a signal indicative of a request for data to the source of the data.

9. A computer-readable storage device comprising instructions stored thereon that upon execution by a processor cause a terminal server to:

send data to a terminal server client using a network protocol;

store a copy of the data that was sent to the terminal server client in a buffer after removing the data from the format used by the network protocol;

determine that a channel established between the terminal server and the terminal server client failed based on a determination that a predetermined amount of time since a packet was last received from the terminal server client has elapsed;

receive in a reconnection request information from the terminal server client identifying an amount of the data that was successfully received by the client; and

sending a specific portion of the data stored in the buffer to the client, the specific portion of the data selected based on the information identifying the amount of the data that was successfully received by the terminal server client.

10. A computer-readable storage device of claim 9, further comprising instructions stored thereon that upon execution by the processor cause the terminal server to:

store information identifying an amount of data that was sent to the client.

11. A computer-readable storage device of claim 9, further comprising instructions stored thereon that upon execution by the processor cause the terminal server to:

store information identifying an amount of data that was received from the client.

12. A computer-readable storage device of claim 9, further comprising instructions stored thereon that upon execution by the processor cause the terminal server to:

generate, by a redirection driver associated with a plug and play device, the data.

13. A computer-readable storage device of claim 9, further comprising instructions stored thereon that upon execution by the processor cause the terminal server to:

store the data stored in the buffer, the buffer including multiplexed data from multiple data sources.

14. A client device comprising:

a processor; and

a memory, the memory being in communication with the processor when powered, the memory including instructions stored thereon that upon execution cause the client device to;

store information identifying an amount data that was received from a computer system over a network channel established between the client device and the computer system, the amount of data being a portion of the total amount of data that was sent by the computer system to the client device;

determine that the network channel failed;

send information identifying the amount of data that was received from the computer system where the amount may vary; and

receive a second portion of the total amount of data from the computer system, the second portion including a least a part of the total amount of data that was lost en route to the client device.

15. The client device of claim 14, the memory further comprising instructions stored thereon that upon execution cause the client device to:

receive a signal from the computer system identifying an amount of data sent by the client device that was successfully received by the terminal sever;

determine that the computer system failed to receive at least a portion of data stored in a buffer based on the signal received from the computer system; and

resend at least the portion of the data to the computer system.

16. The client device of claim 15, the memory further comprising instructions stored thereon that upon execution cause the client device to:

instantiate a remote desktop protocol stack instance, wherein the buffer is included in a terminal server layer of the remote protocol stack instance.

17. The client device of claim 14, the memory further comprising instructions stored thereon that upon execution cause the client device to:

store information that identifies an amount of data that was sent to the computer system.

18. The client device of claim 14, the memory further comprising instructions stored thereon that upon execution cause the client device to:

determine that a network channel was reestablished within a predetermined amount of time.

19. The client device of claim 14, the instructions that cause the client device to send the information identifying the amount of data that was received from the computer system further comprise instructions that upon execution cause the client device to:

send information identifying the amount of data received from the computer system in a client reconnection request.