Services advertisement in a wireless mesh

• US 8,838,473 B2
• Filed: 02/25/2009
• Issued: 09/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Kuehnel, Thomas W., Manchanda, Alok, Mandhana, Taroon, Hassan, Amer A., Karki, Mukesh, Huitema, Christian, Atas, Yusuf
• Primary Examiner(s): LI, SUN M
• Application Number:
  US12/392,752
• Publication Number:
  US 20100217655A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,029 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14.4, 370/311, 370/328, 370/338, 455/556.1, 455/73, 709/201
• US Class Current: 705/14.4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/124 using a combination of metrics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2514 between local and global IP addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5092 by self-assignment, e.g. picking addresses at random and testing if they are already in use
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/08 Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/18 Multiprotocol handlers, e.g. single devices capable of handling multiple protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/325 in the network layer [OSI layer 3], e.g. X.25 H04L69/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/24 Connectivity information management, e.g. connectivity discovery or connectivity update
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/248 Connectivity information update

Abstract

A computing environment containing a mesh network that is adapted to provide a reliable transport mechanism over which services may be delivered. Nodes of the mesh can automatically select routable addresses without conflicts, which allows nodes of the mesh to be accessed, even as the mesh changes through the addition or deletion of nodes. Also, nodes communicate with a protocol that supports service advertisements. These advertisements can identify mesh nodes that supply services, such as file or print servers, for which devices that have not yet connected to the network may be searching. Advertisements can also identify services to be used by nodes in the network, allowing, for example, a node to select a gateway providing a reliable connection to an external network. The mesh network can be used as a transport for communication using protocols, such as TCP/IP, that generally exhibit poor performance when using unreliable transports.

Claims

1. A method of advertising a service provided by a first mesh computing device in a mesh network, the mesh network comprising a plurality of mesh computing devices, the method comprising:

operating at least one second mesh computing device in the plurality of mesh computing devices to;

receive wirelessly over the mesh network according to a first protocol an advertisement for the service from the first mesh computing device, the first protocol being a higher layer protocol used for communication among mesh computing devices forming the mesh network; and

advertise wirelessly according to a second protocol the service to a computing device not in the mesh network, the second protocol being a lower layer protocol used for communicating with computing devices in range of and not connected to the mesh network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein advertising according to the second protocol comprises wirelessly broadcasting according to the second protocol.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the broadcasting further comprises broadcasting the availability of the mesh network to a computing device not in the mesh network.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein advertising according to the second protocol comprises responding according to the second protocol to a request for available services, the request being sent by a computing device not in the mesh network.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving over the mesh network according to the first protocol comprises receiving over the mesh network according to a level three networking protocol.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the level three networking protocol comprises a UPnP Discovery protocol or a Web Services Discovery protocol.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein advertising according to the second protocol comprises advertising according to a layer two networking protocol.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the layer two networking protocol is wireless ethernet.

9. A method of operating a computing device in wireless communication range of a mesh network to access a selected service, the method comprising:

operating the computing device to;

receive a wireless advertisement from a first node of the mesh network, the advertisement being formatted in accordance with a lower layer mesh network protocol and comprising an identification of at least one service provided by one or more second nodes of the mesh network, the second nodes being different than the first node;

analyze the advertisement to determine whether the selected service is available on the mesh network; and

in a response to a determination that the selected service is available on the mesh network, join the mesh network and access the selected service over the mesh network using a higher layer protocol.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein:

accessing the selected service over the mesh network further comprises communicating with the second node to access the selected service.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first protocol is a layer two networking protocol.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the service is a printing service.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the service is a data service.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the layer two networking protocol is wireless Ethernet.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein communicating with the second node to access the selected service is performed according to a layer three networking protocol.

16. A method of operating a mesh network, the method comprising:

generating a plurality of advertisements, each advertisement being generated from a respective node in a network providing a service, and each advertisement identifying the service provided by the respective node;

propagating the advertisements through the mesh network using a higher layer mesh network protocol;

receiving at a node of the mesh network at least a portion of the plurality of advertisements;

aggregating the services identified in the received advertisements into an advertisement of the mesh network; and

transmitting the advertisement of the services of the mesh network outside the mesh network using a lower layer protocol.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein transmitting the advertisement of the services of the mesh network comprises responding to a request for a service by a computing device not on the mesh network.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein transmitting the advertisement of the services of the mesh network comprises broadcasting the services of the mesh network.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein transmitting the advertisement of the services of the mesh network is performed according to a layer two networking protocol.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the higher layer protocol is a layer three networking protocol.