REQUEST AND RESPONSE CHARACTERISTICS BASED ADAPTATION OF DISTRIBUTED CACHING IN A MOBILE NETWORK

• US 20120110110A1
• Filed: 10/17/2011
• Published: 05/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seven Networks LLC (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Seven Networks Inc
• Inventors: Luna, Michael, Tsõmbaljuk, Andrei
• Granted Patent: US 9,275,163 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/213
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0866 for peripheral storage systems, e.g. disk cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0888 using selective caching, e.g. bypass
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/289 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data consumer application, e.g. in same machine, in same home or in same sub-network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals

Abstract

Systems and methods of request and response characteristics based adaptation of distributed caching in a mobile network are disclosed. In one aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure include a method, which may be implemented on a system, of collecting information about a request or information about the response received for the request, the request being initiated at the mobile device, using the information about the request or the response, determining cacheability of the response, caching the response by storing the response a cache entry in a cache on the mobile device in response to determining the cacheability of the response, and/or serving the response from the cache to satisfy a subsequent request. The response in the cache entry can be verified by an entity physically separate from the mobile device to determine whether the response stored in the local cache still matches a current response at a source which sent the response.

Claims

1. A method of determining cacheability of content received for a client on a mobile device, the method, comprising:

tracking requests generated by the client at the mobile device to detect periodicity of the requests generated by the client;

tracking responses received for requests generated by the client to detect repeatability in content of the responses;

determining whether the content received for the client is cacheable on the mobile device based on one or more of the periodicity in the requests and the repeatability in the content of the responses;

wherein, a host which sends the responses is monitored at a rate to verify relevance or validity of the cache entry for the requests.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein, the periodicity is further indicated by predictable patterns in a timing of at least two of the requests generated by the client on the mobile device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein, the repeatability is further indicated by similarity in the content of at least two of the responses.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein, the repeatability in the response is detected by examining hash values of response bodies of the responses received for the client.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein, the repeatability in the response is detected by examining status codes associated with the responses.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein, the tracking of the requests includes tracking of two or more requests and periodicity is determined when request intervals between the two or more requests are the same.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein, periodicity is determined when the request intervals fall within a tolerance level.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising, further determining cacheability of the content based on request method or request size of the requests generated by the client.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising, further determining cacheability of the content based on whether the responses for the client utilize transfer encoding.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising, further determining cacheability of the content based on request method or response size of the responses received for the client.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising, further determining cacheability of the content based on status codes associated with responses for the client;

wherein content associated with uncacheable status codes is determined to be uncacheable.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising, determining that the content received for the client is non-cacheable if the client or addressed identifiers in the requests are blacklisted, even if periodicity or repeatability is detected.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising, storing the content received for the client in a cache on the mobile device when determined to be cacheable, wherein, the cache is persisted between client restarts or refreshes.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein, the client is a mobile application or a mobile web browser.

15. A system for caching of content received from a host server on a mobile device, the system, comprising:

a processor;

memory having stored thereon instructions which when executed by the processor, causes the processor to perform the processes including;

determining that content received from the host server is cacheable on the mobile device based on timing characteristics of requests and similarity of in the content of the responses received for the requests;

storing the responses as cache entries in a local cache of the mobile device;

detecting a subsequent request directed to the host server;

identifying a cache entry from the local cache to satisfy the subsequent request;

monitoring the host server at a rate to verify relevance or validity of the cache entry for the subsequent request,

wherein, the rate being determined from the timing characteristics of the requests.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein, the subsequent request is detected to be directed to the host server based on a resource identifier associated with the subsequent request.

17. The system of claim 15, the processes further include, performing cache look-up in the local cache to identify the cache entry to be used in responding to the subsequent request.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein, the cache entries are stored in the local cache in association with the resource identifier which addresses the host server;

wherein, the cache look-up is performed by querying the resource identifier in the local cache.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein, a cache hit is detected when all resource identifier parts match.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein, a cache hit is detected when a specified arbitrary parameter does not match.

21. A method of distributed management of caching in a wireless network for a mobile device, the method, comprising:

tracking requests generated by a client or directed to a given host at the mobile device to detect periodicity of the requests,

wherein periodicity is detected when request intervals between the two or more requests are substantially the same or fall within a tolerance level;

caching, on the mobile device, a response as a cache entry in a cache of the mobile device, the response being received for the requests for which periodicity is detected;

wherein, the given host is monitored at a rate to verify relevance or validity of the cache entry for the requests, the rate being determined from request intervals,

wherein, the rate is updated to a different rate if subsequent requests generated by the client have different request intervals.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the rate and the different rate are determined at the mobile device.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the rate and the different rate are communicated to a remote proxy over a cellular network, for the remote proxy to monitor the given host.

24. A method of cache management on a mobile device, the method comprising:

collecting information about a request or information about the response received for the request, the request being initiated at the mobile device;

using the information about the request or the response, determining cacheability of the response;

in response to determining the cacheability of the response, caching the response by storing the response a cache entry in a cache on the mobile device;

wherein the response in the cache entry is verified by an entity physically separate from the mobile device to determine whether the response stored in the local cache still matches a current response at a source which sent the response;

serving the response from the cache to satisfy a subsequent request.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein, the information includes request characteristics information associated with the request or response characteristics information associated with the response received for the request.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein, the request characteristics information includes request method or request size.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein, the request characteristics information includes periodicity information between the request and other requests generated by a same client on the mobile device.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein, periodicity is detected when the request and the other requests generated by the same client occur at a fixed rate.

29. The method of claim 24, wherein, cacheability can be determined if the information about the request indicates that a request body size of the request does not exceed a certain size.

30. The method of claim 24, wherein, the entity is a proxy server coupled to the mobile device and able to communicate wirelessly with the mobile device;

wherein, the proxy server polls a host server to which the request is directed at a rate determined at the mobile device, based on timing intervals between previous requests generated by a same client which generated the request.