Systems and methods for providing client-side accelerated access to remote applications via TCP pooling

• US 8,700,695 B2
• Filed: 12/30/2005
• Issued: 04/15/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Original Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Inventors: Sundarrajan, Prabakar, He, Junxiao, Verzunov, Sergey, Venkatraman, Charu, Shetty, Anil, Nanjundaswamy, Shashi
• Primary Examiner(s): Nawaz, Asad
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHANG, STEPHANIE L
• Application Number:
  US11/324,138
• Publication Number:
  US 20060200849A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,028 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/203, 709/206, 709230-237, 709/217, 709/219, 370/230, 370/231, 345/333, 345/352, 714/748, 714/749
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/163 In-band adaptation of TCP data exchange; In-band control procedures

Abstract

The present invention is directed towards systems and methods for dynamically deploying and executing acceleration functionality on a client to improve the performance and delivery of remotely accessed applications. In one embodiment, the client-side acceleration functionality is provided by an acceleration program that performs a transport layer connection pooling technique for improving performance of communications and delivery of a remotely-accessed application. The acceleration program establishes a transport layer connection from the client to the server that can be used by multiple applications on the client, or that is otherwise shared among applications of the client. The acceleration program maintains the transport layer connection open to reduce the number of transport layer connection requests and number of transport layer connections established with the server for an application or multiple applications running on the client.

Claims

1. A method for accelerating access by the client to a server by pooling on the client one or more transport layer connections to the server, the method comprising the steps of:

intercepting, by an acceleration program on the client, a first request by a first application to establish a first transport layer connection with a server;

establishing, by the acceleration program, a transport layer connection between the acceleration program and the server;

intercepting, by the acceleration program, a second request by a second application to establish a second transport layer connection with the server;

determining, by the acceleration program based on a content length parameter or a chunk-size field in an application layer communication between the first application and the server, that the communication between the first application and the server is complete and the first application'"'"'s use of the established transport layer connection is idle; and

using, by the acceleration program, responsive to the determination, the established transport layer connection to provide the requested transport layer connection for the second application.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising transmitting, by an appliance, the acceleration program to the client upon a request from the client to establish one of a connection or a session with the server.

3. The method of claim 2, comprising upon receipt of the acceleration program, automatically installing and executing, by the client, the acceleration program.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the acceleration program comprises a filter device driver interfaced to a transport layer of a network stack of the client.

5. The method of claim 1, comprising multiplexing, by the acceleration program, requests from a plurality of applications on the client via the established transport layer connection.

6. The method of claim 1, comprising performing, by the acceleration program, on the client one of the following acceleration techniques:

compression;

decompression;

Transmission Control Protocol multiplexing;

Transmission Control Protocol buffering; and

caching.

7. The method of claim 1, comprising performing, by the acceleration program, one of encryption or decryption of communications between the client and the server.

8. The method of claim 1, comprising closing, by the acceleration program, the first transport layer connection upon receipt of a reset or finish command.

9. The method of claim 1, comprising maintaining, by the acceleration program, the transport layer connection open during a period of idle activity between the server and one of the first application or the second application.

10. The method of claim 9, comprising inserting, by the acceleration program, in a communication from the client to the server an instruction to keep the transport layer connection open.

11. The method of claim 1, comprising determining, by the acceleration program, the transport layer connection is currently being used by one of the first application or the second application by comparing the number of bytes transmitted to and acknowledged from the server for each application.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining, by the acceleration program, the transport layer connection is currently being used by the first application, and opening a second transport layer connection between the acceleration program and the server for use by the second application.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein establishing the transport layer connection further comprises establishing the transport layer connection between the acceleration program and an appliance, the appliance in communications with the server.

14. The method of claim 13, comprising establishing, by the appliance, a pool of one or more transport layer connections for use by the acceleration program.

15. The method of claim 1, comprising executing, by the client, the acceleration program, transparently to one of a network layer, a session layer, or application layer of a network stack of the client.

16. The method of claim 1, comprising executing, by the client, the acceleration program, transparently to one of the first application, the second application, or the server.

33. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that the first application'"'"'s use of the established transport layer connection is idle further comprises checking that the first application has received all application layer data from the server to a response to a request of the first application.

34. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that the first application'"'"'s use of the established transport layer connection is idle further comprises checking that the first application is not using the established transport layer connection prior to receipt of a close request for the established transport layer connection.

17. A system for accelerating access by the client to one or more servers by pooling on the client one or more transport layer connections to the server, the system comprising:

means for intercepting, by an acceleration program on the client, a first request by a first application to establish a first transport layer connection with a server;

means for establishing, by the acceleration program, a transport layer connection between the acceleration program and the server;

means for intercepting, by the acceleration program, a second request by a second application to establish a second transport layer connection with the server;

means for determining, by the acceleration program based on a content length parameter or a chunk-size field in an application layer communication between the first application and the server, that the communication between the first application and the server is complete and the first application'"'"'s use of the established transport layer connection is idle; and

means for using, by the acceleration program, the established transport layer connection to provide the requested transport layer connection for the second application.

18. The system of claim 17, comprising means for automatically installing and executing, by the client, the acceleration program.

19. The system of claim 17, comprising an appliance transmitting the acceleration program to the client upon a request from the client to establish one of a connection or a session with the server.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the acceleration program comprises a filter device driver interfaced to a transport layer of a network stack of the client.

21. The system of claim 17, comprising means for multiplexing, by the acceleration program, requests from a plurality of applications on the client via the second transport layer connection.

22. The system of claim 17, wherein the acceleration program performs on the client one of the following acceleration techniques:

compression;

decompression;

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) multiplexing;

TCP buffering; and

caching.

23. The system of claim 17, wherein the acceleration program performs one of encryption or decryption of communications between the client and the server.

24. The system of claim 17, comprising means for closing, by the acceleration program, the transport layer connection upon receipt of a reset or finish command.

25. The system of claim 17, wherein the acceleration program maintains the transport layer connection open during a period of idle activity between the server and one of the first application or the second application.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the acceleration program inserts in a communication from the client to the server an instruction to keep the connection open.

27. The system of claim 17, wherein the acceleration program determines the transport layer connection is currently being used by one of the first application or the second application by comparing the number of bytes transmitted to and acknowledged from the server for each application.

28. The system of claim 17, wherein the acceleration program determines the transport layer connection is currently being used by the first application, and opens a second transport layer connection between the acceleration program and the server for use by the second application.

29. The system of claim 17, comprising means for establishing the second transport layer connection between the acceleration program and an appliance, the appliance in communications with the server.

30. The system of claim 17, wherein the appliance comprises a pool of one or more transport layer connections for use by the acceleration program.

31. The system of claim 17, wherein the acceleration program executes on the client transparently to one of a network layer, a session layer, or application layer of a network stack of the client.

32. The system of claim 17, wherein the acceleration program executes on the client transparently to one of the first application, the second application, or the server.

35. A method for accelerating access by the client to a server by pooling on the client one or more transport layer connections to the server, the method comprising:

intercepting, by an acceleration program on the client, a first request by a first application to establish a first transport layer connection with a server;

intercepting, by the acceleration program, a second request by a second application to establish a second transport layer connection with the server;

determining, by the acceleration program based on checking application layer communications between the first application and the server, that the first application'"'"'s use of the established transport layer connection is idle by checking that the first application is not using the established transport layer connection prior to receipt of a timeout for the established transport layer connection; and

using, by the acceleration program, responsive to the determination, the established transport layer connection to provide the requested transport layer connection for the second application.