MESSAGE SEND QUEUE REORDERING BASED ON PRIORITY

• US 20100146067A1
• Filed: 01/12/2010
• Published: 06/10/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: TAPUSKA, David, KNOWLES, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 8,065,396 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/207
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/226 Delivery according to priorities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context

Abstract

A method and system for communicating serialized data provides a mechanism for ordering the data in response to a priority. In an embodiment, a server sending the data uses the priority to order the data in a message send queue for sending the data to a requesting device. The server may comprise a gateway and the second device a wireless device communicating with the gateway. The wireless device may send a priority indication in association with a request for the data to facilitate the ordering.

Claims

1-19. -19. (canceled)

20. A method of ordering a message send queue of a communication connection in a server sending respective response data to a wireless communication device in response to a plurality of requests from the wireless communication device, the method comprising the steps of:

placing data comprising a response to a first request in the send queue of the communication connection and serially transmitting the data in said send queue to the wireless device;

receiving a second request from the wireless device, said second request being determined to have a respective relative priority that is higher than a priority of the first request; and

placing at least some data comprising a response to the second request in the send queue of the communication connection ahead of at least some of the data comprising the response to the first request still in the queue and serially transmitting the data in said send queue to the wireless device;

wherein the communication connection having the send queue for serially transmitting data is established between the server and the wireless device.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein it comprises the steps of:

receiving a third request from the wireless device, said third request being determined to have a respective relative priority that is higher than the priority of the second request; and

placing at least some data comprising a response to the third request in the send queue of the communication connection ahead of at least some of the data comprising the response to the second request still in the queue and serially transmitting the data in the queue to the wireless device.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein it comprises periodically placing some of the data comprising the first response ahead of any data in the queue and serially transmitting the data in the queue to the wireless device in order to avoid a timing out of a connection between the server and the wireless device.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein determining a respective relative priority comprises evaluating a priority indication of a request, said priority indication defining the relative priority of the response data for that request.

24. The method of claim 20 further comprising receiving said plurality of requests wherein at least some of said requests comprise a respective priority indication for ordering the sending of their respective response data relative to other response data.

25. The method of claim 20 further comprising receiving the respective response data for sending via said message queue in response to the respective request.

26. The method of claim 20, wherein the message queue comprises a first in first out (FIFO) queue and wherein ordering comprises placing the respective response data at one of the ends of the message queue in response to their respective relative priorities.

27. The method of claim 20, wherein the server receives a priority indication for at least one of the requests from the wireless device.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the server receives a priority indication from the wireless device for any request deemed to require immediate action.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the priority indication received by the server for each subsequent request requiring immediate action has a value comprising an incremented value of a last such request.

30. The method of claim 20, wherein the server is a wireless gateway server and wherein the method comprises formatting the response data for transmitting in accordance with a wireless communications protocol.

31. The method of claim 20 wherein the data comprising the response to the first request comprises a plurality of data packets, and the placing comprises placing some of the data comprising the response to the second request in the send queue of the communication connection ahead of at least one data packet of the data comprising the response to the first request.

32. A method, in a wireless communication device, of requesting response data, the response data being received in the wireless communication device from a server responding to a plurality of requests from the wireless device for the data, the method comprising the steps of:

sending a first request for data to said server;

sending a second request for data to said server, said second request being sent with a respective relative priority that is higher than a priority of the first request; and

serially receiving data comprising a response to said second request, some of said data comprising a response to said second request being serially received ahead of at least some data comprising a response to the first request;

wherein the communication connection having the message send queue for serially transmitting data is established between the server and the wireless device.

33. The method of claim 32, further comprising:

processing a portion of the data comprising the response to the first request prior to receiving the data comprising the response to the second request;

after receiving the data comprising the response to the second request, processing the data comprising the response to the second request ahead of a remaining portion of the data comprising the response to the first request; and

completing processing of the remaining portion of the data comprising the response to the first request once processing of the data comprising the response to the second request is completed.

34. The method of claim 32, wherein it comprises the steps of:

sending a third request for data to said server from the wireless device;

said third request being sent with a respective relative priority that is higher than the priority of the second request; and

serially receiving data comprising a response to said third request at said wireless device, some of said data comprising a response to said third request being serially received ahead of the data comprising the response to the second request.

35. The method of claim 34, further comprising:

processing a portion of the data comprising the response to the second request prior to receiving the data comprising the response to the third request;

after receiving the data comprising the response to the third request, processing the data comprising the response to the third request ahead of a remaining portion of the data comprising the response to the second request; and

completing processing of the remaining portion of the data comprising the response to the second request once processing of the data comprising the response to the third request is completed.

36. The method of claim 32, wherein it comprises periodically receiving some of the data comprising the first response ahead of the data comprising the second response at the wireless device and processing said periodically received data in order to avoid timing out of a connection between the server and the wireless device.

37. The method of claim 32, wherein the wireless device assigns a priority indication to any request deemed to require immediate action.

38. The method of claim 37 wherein the wireless device assigns to each subsequent request deemed to require immediate action a priority indication comprising an incremented value of a last such request.

39. The method of claim 32, wherein the wireless device sends the priority indication in a header portion of the request.

40. The method of claims 32, wherein determining a respective relative priority comprises evaluating a first portion of the first response data to determine the second request for the second respective response data having a higher priority than a remaining portion of the first respective response data and defining the respective relative priority in response to the higher priority.

41. The method of claim 32, further comprising suspending processing of said first respective response data at the wireless device until the processing of the second respective response data is complete.

42. A wireless communication device for requesting response data wireless communication device communicating serially with a server via a communication connection established between the wireless device and the server, the communication connection having a send queue for serially transmitting data, wherein the wireless device comprises a processor configured to execute instructions to cause the wireless device to:

send a first request for data to said server;

send a second request for data to said server, said second request being sent with a respective relative priority that is higher than a priority of the first request; and

serially receive data comprising a response to said second request, some of said data comprising a response to said second request being serially received ahead of the data comprising the response to the first request;

43. The wireless device of claim 42, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to:

process a portion of the data comprising the response to the first request prior to receiving the data comprising the response to the second request;

after receiving the data comprising the response to the second request, process the data comprising the response to the second request ahead of a remaining portion of the data comprising the response to the first request; and

complete processing of the remaining portion of the data comprising the response to the first request once processing of the data comprising the response to the second request is completed.

44. The wireless device of claim 42, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to:

send a third request for data to said server from the wireless device;

said third request being sent with a respective relative priority that is higher than the priority of the second request; and

serially receive data comprising a response to said third request at said wireless device, some of said data comprising a response to said third request being serially received ahead of the data comprising the response to the second request.

45. The wireless device of claim 44, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to:

process a portion of the data comprising the response to the second request prior to receiving the data comprising the response to the third request;

after receiving the data comprising the response to the third request, process the data comprising the response to the third request ahead of a remaining portion of the data comprising the response to the second request; and

complete processing of the remaining portion of the data comprising the response to the second request once processing of the data comprising the response to the third request is completed.

46. The wireless device of claim 42, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to send a priority indication in association with a request for particular response data for any request deemed to require immediate action.

47. The wireless device of claim 46, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to increment the value of a priority indication for each subsequent requests deemed to require immediate action.

48. The wireless device of claim 42, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to send the priority indication in a header portion of the request.

49. The wireless device of claim 42, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to determine the priority of the particular response data relative to other response data.

50. The wireless device of claim 49, wherein the processor, in order to determine the priority, is further configured to cause the wireless device to:

evaluate a first portion of a first response data to determine a second request for a second respective response data having a higher priority than a remaining portion of the first respective response data; and

define the priority indication in response to the higher priority.

51. A wireless gateway for communicating with a wireless communication device coupled to the gateway via a wireless network, the wireless communication device and wireless gateway communicating serially via a communication connection established between the wireless device and the wireless gateway, the communication connection having a send queue for serially transmitting data, the wireless gateway comprising a processor configured to execute instructions to cause the wireless gateway to:

place data comprising a response to a first request in the send queue of the communication connection and serially transmit the data in said send queue to the wireless device;

receive a second request from the wireless device, said second request being determined to have a respective relative priority that is higher than a priority of the first request; and

place at least some data comprising a response to the second request in the send queue of the communication connection ahead of at least some of the data comprising the response to the first request still in the queue and serially transmit the data in said send queue to the wireless device.

52. The wireless gateway of claim 51, wherein the gateway is coupled to at least one further device configured for providing response data and wherein the gateway is adapted to obtain the response data from the second device in response to the received requests.

53. A server for communicating with a wireless communication device, the wireless communication device and the server communicating serially via a communication connection established between the wireless device and the server, the communication connection having a send queue for serially transmitting data, wherein the server comprises a processor configured to execute instructions to cause the server to:

place data from the server comprising a response to a first request in the send queue of the communication connection and serially transmit the data in said send queue to the wireless device;

receive a second request from the wireless device, said second request being determined to have a respective relative priority that is higher than a priority of the first request; and

place some of the data comprising the response to the second request in the send queue of the communication connection ahead of at least some of the data comprising the response to the first request still in the queue and serially transmitting the data in said send queue to the wireless device.