Connection migration for Internet of Things (IoT) devices

• US 10,356,223 B1
• Filed: 03/17/2016
• Issued: 07/16/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kuo, Calvin Yue-Ren, Turow, Jonathan I., MacDonald, Tristam Kyle, Knoepfler, Justin Robert, Parthasarathy, Yadunandan, Bhalla, Aditya, Chitre, Sudarshan Anand
• Primary Examiner(s): Won, Michael
• Application Number:
  US15/073,554
• Time in Patent Office: 1,216 Days
• Field of Search: 709203, 709226, 709227, 709238, 709241, 709230, 709232, 709235, 709244
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/026 Details of "hello" or keep-alive messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/125 by balancing the load, e.g. traffic engineering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/196 Integration of transport layer protocols, e.g. TCP and UDP
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1004 Server selection for load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1031 Controlling of the operation of servers by a load balancer, e.g. adding or removing servers that serve requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/148 Migration or transfer of sessions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/08 Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/161 Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/168 specially adapted for link layer protocols, e.g. asynchronous transfer mode [ATM], synchronous optical network [SONET] or point-to-point protocol [PPP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/169 Special adaptations of TCP, UDP or IP for interworking of IP based networks with other networks protocols for interworking, protocol conversion H04L69/08

Abstract

Technology is described for migrating connections for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Data packets may be received from an IoT device for forwarding to a first physical host in a computing service environment. A determination to migrate the connection for the IoT device from the first physical host to a second physical host in the computing service environment may be performed when a throughput of the data packets received from the IoT device for the first physical host exceeds a defined threshold. A connection migration procedure may be initiated to migrate the connection for the IoT device from the first physical host to the second physical host. The connection migration procedure may include an exchange of session state information for the IoT device from the first physical host to the second physical host to enable the migration of the connection to the second physical host.

Claims

1. A method for migrating transmission control protocol (TCP) connections for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the method comprising:

receiving, using one or more processors of a load balancer, Internet Protocol (IP) packets that are keep alive messages from an IoT device for forwarding from the load balancer to a first physical host in a computing service environment, wherein the IoT device is communicating with the first physical host using a TCP connection between the IoT device and the first physical host;

detecting, using the one or more processors of the load balancer, that a throughput of the IP packets exceeds a defined threshold when the IP packets received from the IoT device are no longer keep alive messages, wherein the IP packets from the IoT device are destined for the first physical host;

selecting, using the one or more processors of the load balancer, the second physical host in the computing service environment to take over the TCP connection with the IoT device when the IP packets received from the IoT device are no longer keep alive messages; and

initiating, using the one or more processors of the load balancer, a TCP connection migration procedure at the load balancer with the first physical host and the second physical host to migrate the TCP connection for the IoT device from the first physical host to the second physical host when the IP packets received from the IoT device are no longer keep alive messages, wherein the TCP connection migration procedure includes an exchange of session state information for the IoT device by the load balancer from the first physical host to the second physical host to enable the migration of the TCP connection to the second physical host.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving additional IP packets from the IoT device; and

forwarding the additional IP packets to the second physical host in the computing service environment based on the migration of the TCP connection for the IoT device to the second physical host.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving additional IP packets from the IoT device for forwarding to the second physical host;

detecting a throughput of the additional IP packets from the IoT device for the second physical host is below the defined threshold; and

initiating a TCP connection migration procedure to migrate the TCP connection for the IoT device from the second physical host to the first physical host.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising detecting that the throughput of the IP packets from the IoT device is below the defined threshold when the IoT device is periodically transmitting keep alive messages to the first physical host.

5. A method for migrating connections for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the method comprising:

receiving, using one or more processors of a computing system, data packets that are keep alive messages from an IoT device for forwarding to a first physical host in a computing service environment;

determining, using the one or more processors of the computing system, to migrate a connection for the IoT device from the first physical host to a second physical host in the computing service environment when a throughput of the data packets received from the IoT device for the first physical host exceeds a defined threshold and the data packets received from the IoT device are not keep alive messages; and

initiating, using the one or more processors of the computing system, a connection migration procedure with the first physical host and the second physical host to migrate the connection for the IoT device from the first physical host to the second physical host when data packets received from the IoT device are not keep alive messages, wherein the connection migration procedure includes an exchange of session state information for the IoT device from the first physical host to the second physical host to enable the migration of the connection to the second physical host, wherein the second physical host utilizes the session state information to take over the connection with the IoT device and the connection migration is transparent to the IoT device.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising determining to migrate the connection for the IoT device to the second physical host based on an expected traffic pattern of the IoT device.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

forwarding data packets from the IoT device to the second physical host in accordance with the migration of the connection for a defined duration based on an expected traffic pattern of the IoT device or until a throughput of the data packets from the IoT device falls below the defined threshold; and

migrating the connection for the IoT device from the second physical host to the first physical host.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising selecting the second physical host in the computing service environment to take over the connection with the IoT device based on a current load at the second physical host in relation to current loads for a plurality of physical hosts in the computing service environment.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

selecting the second physical host in the computing service environment to take over the connection with the IoT device based on a predicted traffic pattern of the IoT device in relation to predicted traffic patterns for a plurality of IoT devices that are currently connected to the first physical host;

or

selecting the second physical host in the computing service environment to take over the connection with the IoT device based on a type of IoT device;

or

selecting the second physical host in the computing service environment to take over the connection with the IoT device based on a type of data communicated from the IoT device.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein the connection migration procedure to migrate the connection for the IoT device from the first physical host to the second physical host is performed using a load balancer in the computing service environment.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein the connection for the IoT device is migrated from the first physical host to the second physical host using a session initiation protocol (SIP) at a load balancer.

12. The method of claim 5, wherein the connection for the IoT device is a session-based connection protocol.

13. The method of claim 5, wherein:

the first physical host is configured to handle an increased number of connections for IoT devices and a reduced throughput per connection; and

the second physical host is configured to handle a reduced number of connections for IoT devices and an increased throughput per connection.

14. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

extracting connection state information from the data packets received from the IoT device at the first physical host or the second physical host, wherein the data packets include a keep alive message; and

transferring the connection state information from a local memory of the first physical host or the second physical host to an external memory storage device in the computing service environment.

15. The method of claim 5, further configured to periodically receive the data packets from the IoT device, wherein the data packets include keep alive messages to maintain the connection between the IoT device and the first physical host.

16. A method for migrating a connection for an Internet of Things (IoT) device, the method comprising:

receiving, using one or more processors of a first physical host, data packets that are keep alive messages from the IoT device via a load balancer in a computing service environment, the first physical host being configured to handle an increased number of connections for IoT devices and a reduced throughput per connection as compared to a second physical host;

detecting, using the one or more processors of the first physical host, that a throughput of the data packets received from the IoT device exceeds a defined threshold when data packets received from the IoT device are not keep alive messages;

selecting, using the one or more processors of the first physical host, the second physical host in the computing service environment to take over the connection with the IoT device when data packets received from the IoT device are not keep alive messages; and

initiating, using the one or more processors of the first physical host, a connection migration procedure at the first physical host with the second physical host to migrate the connection for the IoT device from the first physical host to the second physical host when data packets received from the IoT device are not keep alive messages, wherein the connection migration procedure includes an exchange of session state information for the IoT device from the first physical host to the second physical host to enable the migration of the connection to the second physical host.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving additional data packets from the IoT device via the load balancer in the computing service environment; and

sending a notification to the load balancer indicating that the connection for the IoT device is migrated to the second physical host, wherein the load balancer is configured to forward data packets from the IoT device to the second physical host based on the notification received from the first physical host.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving a notification from the second physical host indicating that a throughput of additional data packets for the IoT device is below the defined threshold; and

performing a connection migration procedure directly with the second physical host to migrate the connection for the IoT device from the second physical host to the first physical host.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising detecting that the throughput of the data packets received from the IoT device is below the defined threshold when the IoT device is periodically transmitting keep alive messages to the first physical host via the load balancer.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the second physical host is selected by the first physical host to take over the connection with the IoT device based on a present load at the second physical host in relation to present loads for a plurality of physical hosts in the computing service environment.