Congestion control and avoidance method in a data processing system

• US 6,931,435 B2
• Filed: 06/28/2002
• Issued: 08/16/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Aoki, Hideo, Nishikado, Takashi, Yokota, Daisuke, Takahashi, Yasuhiro, Noda, Fumio, Takeshima, Yoshiteru
• Primary Examiner(s): PEIKARI, BEHZAD
• Application Number:
  US10/183,519
• Publication Number:
  US 20030028616A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,145 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/200, 709/214, 709/216, 709/217, 709/219, 709/213, 711/3, 711/118, 711/130, 711/138, 711/139, 711/147
• US Class Current: 709/213
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/12 Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1014 based on the content of a request
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/2885 Hierarchically arranged intermediate devices, e.g. for hierarchical caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/564 Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5651 Reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching

Abstract

A congestion control and avoidance method including a method check step of determining whether the request contents is cacheable or uncacheable on the basis of the request inputted from the client terminal, a first Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) check step of, when it is determined that the request contents is cacheable in the method check step, checking a URI included in the request from the client terminal to determine whether the request contents is cacheable or uncacheable, a first URI hash search step of, when it is determined that the request contents is cacheable based on determination of the first URI check step, searching a URI hash to determine to execute any of regular caching, priority caching and access limitationing operation, and a step of executing any of the regular caching, priority caching and access limitationing operation according to determination in the first URI hash search step.

Claims

1. A communication relay apparatus, which relays a request from a plurality of client terminals to a web server apparatus, for obtaining contents, and transmitting the contents obtained from the web server apparatus to the client terminals, said communication relay apparatus executing the steps of:

when receiving a plurality of requests for obtaining the same contents that have not been stored in a cache memory of the communication relay apparatus, aggregating the requests into an aggregated request for obtaining the contents;

transmitting the aggregated request for obtaining the contents to the web server apparatus;

when obtaining the contents, in response to the aggregated request for obtaining contents, from the web server apparatus, transmitting the obtained contents to the client terminals that transmitted the requests to the communication relay apparatus,

suspending a process of a request that has not been relayed to the web server apparatus according to the aggregating step; and

resuming the process of the suspended request after obtaining the contents responding to the segregated request.

2. A communication relay apparatus according to claim 1, further executing the steps of:

storing the obtained content stored from the web server apparatus into the cache memory of the communication relay apparatus; and

transmitting the contents stored in the cache memory to a client terminal that transmitted the request,

wherein the process of the requesting suspended and then resumed.

3. A communication relay apparatus according to claim 2, further executing the steps of:

transmitting the obtained contents from the web server apparatus to the client terminals that transmitted the requests; and

storing the obtained contents thus transmitted into the cache memory of the communication relay apparatus.

4. A communication relay apparatus according to claim 2, further executing the steps of:

checking information in the request as to whether the contents stored in the cache memory are usable or not; and

transmitting, when the contents stored in the cache memory are not usable, each received request for obtaining the same contents that have not been stored in the cache memory to the web server apparatus.

5. A communication relay apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the aggregated step further comprises the steps of:

making a cache entry in the cache memory when receiving a request for obtaining contents that have not been stored in the cache memory; and

suspending a received request for obtaining contents for which a cache entry has been made and for which the contents have not been stored in the cache memory.

6. A communication relay apparatus according to claim 2, further executing the steps of:

resuming the suspended process after storing the obtained contents in the cache memory; and

transmitting the contents stored in the cache memory as a response to the request to the client terminal that transmitted the request.

7. A communication relay apparatus according to claim 1, wherein each of the requests for obtaining contents specifies a Universal Resource Identifier (URI) of the contents.