Keep alive management

• US 8,892,710 B2
• Filed: 09/09/2011
• Issued: 11/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gatta, Srinivas Raghu, Srinivasan, Kamalavasan, Ertugay, Osman N., Thaler, David G., Anipko, Dmitry A., Vanturennout, Jeroen, Rahman, Mohammad Saifur, Gaddehosur, Poornananda R.
• Primary Examiner(s): JACOBS, LASHONDA T
• Application Number:
  US13/229,325
• Publication Number:
  US 20130067059A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,166 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 709/229, 370/252, 370/401
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3206 Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3234 Power saving characterised by the action undertaken
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/12 Arrangements for remote connection or disconnection of substations or of equipment thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• 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: H04W 52/0209 in terminal devices terminal devices per se H04W88/02
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Keep alive management techniques are described. In one or more implementations, a keep alive interval is calculated by an operating system of the computing device. The keep alive interval is used to maintain one or more notification channels between one or more applications of the computing device and a network.

Claims

1. A method implemented by a computing device, the method comprising:

calculating a keep alive interval by an operating system of the computing device;

adjusting the keep alive interval, by the operating system, based on monitored usage of the keep alive interval; and

using the keep alive interval to maintain one or more notification channels between one or more applications of the computing device and a network.

2. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the calculating of the keep alive interval is based at least in part on a network timeout interval of one or more intermediary devices of the network.

3. A method as described in claim 2, wherein the one or more intermediary devices include a network address translation device, a proxy, firewall, or wireless access point.

4. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the calculating of the keep alive interval is based at least in part on a server timeout interval of an endpoint with which the one or more applications communicate via the network.

5. A method as described in claim 4, wherein the server timeout interval is discovered by the operating system by investigating the one or more applications of the computing device with which the endpoint is to communicate.

6. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the calculating of the keep alive interval is based at least in part on a network timeout interval of one or more intermediary devices of the network and a server timeout interval of an endpoint with which the one or more applications of the computing device are to communicate with via the network.

7. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the adjusting is performed responsive to loss of communication via one or more of the notification channels.

8. A method as described in claim 1, wherein adjusting the keep alive interval includes either increasing the keep alive interval or decreasing the keep alive interval based on monitored usage of the keep alive interval.

9. A method implemented by a computing device, the method comprising:

determining for each of a plurality of applications executable on the computing device one or more server timeout intervals specified to maintain a notification channel with a respective endpoint via a network;

calculating a keep alive interval from the one or more server timeout intervals for each of the plurality of applications;

adjusting the keep alive interval based on monitored usage of the keep alive interval by an operating system of the computing device; and

using the keep alive interval to wake a network interface device as specified to maintain the notification channels.

10. A method as described in claim 9, wherein the keep alive interval specifies an amount of time that is less than at least one of the one or more server timeout intervals.

11. A method as described in claim 10, wherein the keep alive interval does not define a period of time longer than any one of the one or more server timeout intervals.

12. A method as described in claim 10, wherein the using causes the computing device to batch communications for at least two or more said server timeout intervals.

13. A method as described in claim 9, wherein the determining, calculating, and using are performed as part of execution of an operating system by the computing device.

14. A method as described in claim 9, wherein at least one said application corresponds to at least two said notification channels involving two different said endpoints, respectively.

15. One or more computer-readable storage media comprising computer executable instructions that, responsive to execution by a computing device, causes the computing device to implement an operating system configured to use a keep alive interval to maintain notification channels between a plurality of applications that are executable on the computing device and respective one or more endpoints via a network, the keep alive interval calculated based on a one or more network timeout intervals of one or more intermediary devices of the network and one or more server timeout intervals of respective said endpoints with which the one or more applications communicate via the network, the keep alive interval dynamically adjusted based on monitored usage of the keep alive interval by the operating system.

16. One or more computer-readable storage media as described in claim 15, wherein the one or more intermediary devices include a network address translation device, a proxy, firewall, or wireless access point.

17. One or more computer-readable storage media as described in claim 15, wherein the server timeout interval is discovered by the operating system by investigating the one or more application of the computing device with which the endpoint is to communicate.

18. One or more computer-readable storage media as described in claim 15, wherein the keep alive interval is performed to batch one or more said server timeout intervals.

19. One or more computer-readable storage media as described in claim 18, wherein the batching is performed by specifying an amount of time in the keep alive interval that is less than at least one of the one or more server timeout intervals.

20. One or more computer-readable storage media as described in claim 19, wherein the batching is performed by specifying the amount of time in the keep alive interval that is not more than the one or more server timeout intervals that were used to calculate the keep alive interval.