OPERATION MODES FOR MOBILE TRAFFIC OPTIMIZATION AND CONCURRENT MANAGEMENT OF OPTIMIZED AND NON-OPTIMIZED TRAFFIC

• US 20130173756A1
• Filed: 12/14/2012
• Published: 07/04/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seven Networks LLC (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Seven Networks Inc
• Inventors: Luna, Michael, Bott, Ross
• Granted Patent: US 9,832,095 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/2876 Pairs of inter-processing entities at each side of the network, e.g. split proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5651 Reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data

Abstract

Systems and methods of operation modes for mobile traffic optimization and management of concurrent optimized and non-optimized traffic are disclosed. One embodiment includes classifying and handling traffic sent to and from mobile device applications running on a mobile device, the method includes, analyzing, on the mobile device, requests from the mobile device applications for recurrent patterns; traffic having a recurrent pattern is optimizable traffic and traffic with an unidentifiable pattern is non optimizable traffic, managing the optimizable traffic to reduce an amount of wireless data and signaling traffic sent to and from the mobile device and/or routing the non optimizable traffic from the mobile device applications to a service provider. In one embodiment, upon determining a problem communicating with the server, request are routed from the one or more mobile device applications directly to a service provider, the routed traffic bypassing a client-side proxy.

Claims

1. A method of routing requests from mobile device applications running on a mobile device, the method comprising:

monitoring, by a client-side proxy on the mobile device, communications between the client-side proxy and a server, wherein the server is remote from the client-side proxy and operates in conjunction with the client-side proxy to optimize traffic in a wireless network to satisfy data needs of one or more mobile device applications;

upon determining, by the client-side proxy, a problem communicating with the server, routing requests from the one or more mobile device applications directly to a service provider, wherein the routed traffic bypasses the client-side proxy.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising upon determining, by the client-side proxy, a problem communicating with the server, disabling functions of the client-side proxy that perform analysis and optimization of network traffic to and from the mobile device applications.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein monitoring communications comprises sending periodic test messages to the server and awaiting an expected response to each test message.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising monitoring, by the server, communications with the client-side proxy;

upon determining by the server the problem communicating with the client-side proxy, ceasing optimization of traffic for the data needs of the one or more mobile device applications.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising upon determining, by the client-side proxy, that communications with the server have resumed normal operation, re-routing requests from the mobile device applications to the client-side proxy for analysis of requests from the mobile device applications.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the analysis comprises identifying recurrent patterns in the requests, wherein traffic related to requests having identified recurrent patterns is optimizable, and traffic related to requests not having an identifiable pattern is not optimizable.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein not optimizable traffic further includes traffic generated by a mobile device application using a protocol not recognized by the client-side proxy and traffic generated by mobile device applications that have a destination that provides content unsuitable for caching.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein a recurrent pattern includes requests from a mobile device application that polls a service provider regularly, and wherein a same content is requested.

9. The method of claim 6, further comprising upon identifying recurrent patterns in the requests from the mobile device applications, optimizing network traffic related to the requests.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein optimizing network traffic comprises caching at the mobile device a request and a corresponding response, requesting that the server poll the service provider on behalf of the mobile device application originating the request with the identified recurrent patterns, providing the cached response to the mobile device application on subsequent recurrent requests, and updating the cached response if a new response is received by the server.

11. A method of classifying and handling traffic sent to and from mobile device applications running on a mobile device, the method comprising:

analyzing, by a client-side proxy on the mobile device, requests from the mobile device applications for recurrent patterns, wherein traffic having a recurrent pattern is optimizable traffic and traffic with an unidentifiable pattern is non optimizable traffic;

managing, by the client-side proxy, the optimizable traffic to reduce an amount of wireless data and signaling traffic sent to and from the mobile device;

routing the non optimizable traffic from the mobile device applications to a service provider.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein not optimizable traffic further includes traffic generated by a mobile device application using a protocol not recognized by the client-side proxy.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein not optimizable traffic further includes traffic generated by mobile device applications that have a destination that provides content unsuitable for caching.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein a recurrent pattern includes requests from a mobile device application that polls a service provider regularly, and wherein a same content is requested.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the client-side proxy concurrently manages the non optimizable traffic, the identified optimizable traffic awaiting management to reduce the amount of wireless data and signaling traffic sent to and from the mobile device, and the managed optimizable traffic.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein managing the optimizable traffic comprises caching at the mobile device a request and a corresponding response, requesting that a server remote from the mobile device poll the service provider on behalf of the mobile device application originating the request with the identified recurrent pattern, and providing the cached response to the mobile device application on subsequent recurrent requests.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein managing the optimizable traffic further comprises updating the cached response if a new response is received by the server from the service provider, and providing the new response upon further recurrent requests by the mobile device application.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising upon determining, by the client-side proxy, a problem communicating with the server, routing traffic from the mobile device applications directly to the service provider, wherein the re-routed traffic bypasses the client-side proxy.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising upon determining, by the client-side proxy, a problem communicating with the server, ceasing management of optimizable traffic.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising periodically sending test messages to the server to determine when the client-side proxy can again communicate with the server.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising upon determining that the client-side proxy can again communicate with the server, re-routing requests from the mobile device applications to the client-side proxy for analysis and management of requests from the mobile device applications.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein managing the optimizable traffic further comprises identifying a new request from the mobile device application that is different from the cached request, allowing the new request to be sent directly to the service provider, and attempting to identify a new recurrent pattern from subsequent requests by the mobile device application.

23. A system for classifying and handling traffic sent to and from mobile device applications running on a mobile device, the system comprising:

means for monitoring a communication connection between a client-side proxy on the mobile device and a remote server to detect if a communication problem exists;

means for routing traffic from the mobile device applications responsive to whether a communication problem is detected between the client-side proxy and the server,

wherein traffic from the mobile device applications is routed to a service provider if the communication problem is detected, and traffic from the mobile device applications is routed to the client-side proxy is no communication problem is detected.

24. The system of claim 23, further comprising means for analyzing requests from the mobile device applications to identify recurrent patterns, wherein traffic having a recurrent pattern is optimizable traffic and traffic with unidentifiable patterns is non optimizable traffic, and further wherein a recurrent pattern includes requests from a mobile device application that polls a service provider regularly, and a same content is requested, and further wherein the means for analyzing is a component of the client-side proxy,

25. The system of claim 24, further comprising means for managing the optimizable traffic to reduce an amount of wireless data and signaling traffic sent to and from the mobile device, wherein the means for managing is a component of the client-side proxy.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the means for managing caches at the mobile device a request and a corresponding response, requests that the server poll the service provider on behalf of the mobile device application originating the request with the identified recurrent patterns, provides the cached response to the mobile device application on subsequent recurrent requests, and updates the cached response if a new response is received by the server.