STATE MIGRATION OF EDGE-OF-NETWORK APPLICATIONS

• US 20160095041A1
• Filed: 12/09/2015
• Published: 03/31/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Agrawal, Dakshi, Bisdikian, Chatschik, Verma, Dinesh C., Zerfos, Petros
• Granted Patent: US 10,172,064 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/30 by measured or perceived connection quality data
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/304 due to measured or perceived resources with higher communication quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/00 Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/543 based on requested quality, e.g. QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/08 Mobility data transfer

Abstract

A system and computer program product to externalize mobile device state migration (i.e., checkpointing) without being dependent upon any particular Edge Application (EdgeApp) proxy server or cellular network base station. In this manner, the Edge Application (EdgeApp) proxy server does not have to be aware of a migration process, yet will enable state information to be provided to other EdgeApp proxy/server nodes at the edge of the network (cell tower).

Claims

1. A system for providing enhanced quality of experience (QoE) to mobile device users comprising:

a first computing device associated with a source communications network edge node for servicing a mobile device by providing a point of attachment to a communications network, said computing device maintaining associated state information corresponding to one or more applications currently running in the mobile device;

a second computing device associated with a destination communications network edge node for servicing a mobile device by providing a new point of attachment to said communications network when roaming away from said source network edge node; and

a third computing device provided in said network downstream from said network edge, said third device including an associated memory storage device and configured to perform a method to;

obtain, from packet transmissions between the mobile device and the communications network while being serviced by said first computing device, associated state information of said one or more applications for storage at said associated memory storage device;

populate said application state from storage at said associated memory storage device to a storage device associated with said second computing device at said destination network edge node,

said second computing device configured to employ said populated application state at the destination network edge-node to enable seamless continued service to the mobile device user prior to the destination network edge-node becoming said new point of attachment.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein to employ said populated application state, said third computing device is further configured to:

reconstruct state for a mobile device application at the destination network edge-node prior to a roaming mobile device session handoff from the current point of attachment at said source network edge node.

3. The system as claimed in claim 2, wherein said third computing device is further configured to:

detect migration of said mobile device user from said point of attachment at a source network edge node to another attachment point at said destination network edge node; and

generate a trigger to initiate the populating of application state at the second computing device.

4. The system as claimed in claim 3, wherein to detect migration is based on one of:

predictive estimation of the mobile device location given a presence in current cell in cellular network and attachment to a current network edge-node;

or, is based on micro-diversity signal processing techniques of signals communicated by said mobile device.

5. The system as claimed in claim 2, wherein said third computing device is further configured to:

utilize an application-specific application program interface (API) to obtain state of a mobile device application from an application-aware edge-node server at said source network edge node,

wherein via said API, there is further initiated reconstructing said application state at the second computing prior to migrating said mobile device to said destination network edge node.

6. The system as claimed in claim 5, wherein state obtained utilizing an application program specific API include application links to objects cached to a web caching server, said third computing device further configured to:

request said second computing device to pre-fetch objects corresponding to said application links cached at a web caching server at the first computing device prior to migrating said mobile device to said destination network node.

7. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said first and second computing devices each comprises one or more application-aware edge-node servers, said third computing device is further configured to:

obtain, from packet transmission call characteristics state data associated with the current mobile device call;

obtain from call characteristics state data an identifier of each said one or more application-aware edge-node servers servicing mobile device applications for a mobile device user; and

,

select, for each identifier, a method of populating application state at one or more application-aware edge-node servers at the destination node associated with the identifier.

8. The system as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

a byte caching encoder provided in said network for encoding bytes of content for caching at said first or second computing devices; and

a byte caching decoder provided at each said first and second computing devices for decoding bytes of content for use by a mobile device application at a respective source edge node or destination edge node.

9. A computer program product for providing enhanced quality of experience (QoE) to mobile device users, the computer program product comprising a tangible storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions run by the processing circuit for performing a method, the method comprising:

obtain, from packet transmissions between a mobile device and a current communications network edge node providing a point of attachment to said network, an application state of one or more applications currently running in the mobile device;

populate said application state from storage at the current network edge node to a storage device associated with a destination network edge-node server, and

employ said populated application state at the destination network edge-node server to enable seamless continued service to the mobile device user prior to the destination network edge-node becoming a new point of attachment.

10. The computer program product as claimed in claim 9, wherein to employ application state, the method further comprises:

reconstructing state for a mobile device application at the destination network edge-node prior to a roaming mobile user device session handoff from the current point of attachment.

11. The computer program product as claimed in claim 10, wherein said method further includes:

detecting migration of said mobile device user from one point of attachment of a source network cell to another attachment point in a destination network cell; and

generating a trigger to initiate said populating and reconstructing upon said detecting.

12. The computer program product as claimed in claim 9, wherein said detecting migration is based on one of:

predictive estimation of the mobile device location given a presence in current cell in cellular network and attachment to a current network edge-node;

or is based on micro-diversity signal processing techniques of signals communicated by said mobile device.

13. The computer program product as claimed in claim 10, wherein said method further includes:

utilizing an application program specific API to obtain state of a mobile device application from an application-aware edge-node server at a source node,

said API further initiating reconstructing said application state at the destination application-aware edge-node server prior to migrating said mobile device to said destination network node.

14. The computer program product as claimed in claim 13, wherein state obtained utilizing an application program specific API include application links to objects cached to a web caching server, said method further comprising:

requesting said destination application-aware edge-node server to pre-fetch objects corresponding to said application links cached at a web caching server at a source application-aware edge-node server prior to migrating said mobile device to said destination network node.