Effective service node traffic routing

• US 9,787,560 B2
• Filed: 06/04/2015
• Issued: 10/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/04/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Maddux, Denver, Veit, Darrin, Gordon, Stefan K
• Primary Examiner(s): Pollack, Melvin H
• Application Number:
  US14/731,304
• Publication Number:
  US 20160359706A1
• Time in Patent Office: 859 Days
• Field of Search: 709224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/065 related to network devices
• 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 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/101 based on network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

The present describes a traffic routing system to establish a connection with a primary service location, receive a list of service location peers from the primary service location, execute a performance test of the primary service location and each of the service location peers, identify a best performing service location based at least in part on the performance test, and update a database with results of the performance test of the primary service location and each of the service location peers. The traffic routing system may use business rules to expand the criteria to identify the best performing service location. The business rules may include weights that prioritize certain performance characteristics of corresponding service locations including bandwidth cost, energy cost, or idle capacity.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a processing unit comprising memory configured to store a database and one or more processors, the processing unit configure to;

transmit a connection initiation request to a primary service location to provide a service, the connection initiation request including a request for a list of service location peers;

receive a list of service location peers from the primary service location based, at least in part, on the request for the list of service location peers;

execute a performance test of the primary service location and each of the service location peers by downloading a file or pulling a data stream from the primary service location and each of the service location peers, wherein the file or the data stream include predetermined characteristics based, at least in part, on the service being provided by the primary service location;

identify a best performing service location based at least in part on the performance test; and

update the database with results of the performance test of the primary service location and each of the service location peers.

2. The system of claim 1,

wherein the processing unit is further configured to measure performance metrics during the performance test corresponding to the primary service location and each of the service location peers;

and

wherein the processing unit is further configured to update the database with the performance metrics.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing unit is further configured to upload metadata corresponding to the primary service location and each of the service location peers.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the metadata comprises an IP subnet address, autonomous system number, border gateway protocol autonomous system number, border gateway protocol metadata, anycast domain name system response, anycast primary service location lookup service response, or performance test timestamp.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing unit is further configured to identify the best performing service location based at least in part on business weights used to weigh business parameters of corresponding service locations.

6. A method, comprising:

transmitting a connection initiation request to a primary service location to provide a service, the connection initiation request including a request for a list of service location peers;

receiving a list of service location peers from the primary service location in response to the connection initiation request;

executing a performance test of the primary service location and each of the service location peers by downloading a file or pulling a data stream from the primary service location and each of the service location peers, wherein the file or the data stream include predetermined characteristics based, at least in part, on the service being provided by the primary service location;

identifying a best performing service location based at least in part on the performance test; and

updating a database with results of the performance test of the primary service location and each of the service location peers.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

measuring performance metrics during the performance test corresponding to the primary service location and each of the service location peers; and

updating the database with the performance metrics.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

uploading metadata corresponding to the primary service location and each of the service location peers to the database.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the metadata comprises an IP subnet address, autonomous system number, border gateway protocol autonomous system number, border gateway protocol metadata, anycast domain name system response, anycast primary service location lookup service response, or performance test timestamp.

10. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

uploading an accuracy metric corresponding to identifying the primary service location.

11. A system, comprising:

a processing unit comprising memory configured to store a database and one or more processors, the processing unit configure to;

receive, from a client, a request for a primary service location to source content for the client;

identify, to the client, the primary service location and a plurality of service location peers from candidate primary service locations stored in the database in response to the request and based at least in part on performance parameters corresponding to each of the candidate primary service locations;

receive, from the client, test results corresponding to a performance test performed on a network connection between the client and the primary service location and each of the service location peers by downloading a file or pulling a data stream from the primary service location and each of a plurality of service location peers, wherein the file or the data stream include predetermined characteristics based, at least in part, on the service being provided by the primary service location; and

update the database with the test results.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the database is configured to store:

test results corresponding to previous performance tests performed on network connections between serviced clients and the candidate primary service locations; and

metadata corresponding to the candidate primary service locations.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the processing unit is further configured to determine the performance parameters corresponding to each of the candidate service locations based at least in part on the test results.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the processing unit is further configured to identify the primary service location based at least in part on business weights used to weigh business parameters of corresponding service locations.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the processing unit is further configured to identify the primary service location based at least in part on a portion of an address for the client.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the processing unit is further configured to identify primary service location peers to the client in response to receiving a request for the primary service location peers.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the processing unit is further configured to update the performance parameters corresponding to the primary service location in response to a failure of the primary service location.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the processing unit is further configured to:

assign a location resolution weight to a location resolution method used to identify the primary service location; and

update the database with the location resolution weight.