The present invention is directed towards the acceleration of delivery of a computing environment to a remote user of a client at a remote location. The computing environment may include an application and a data file used or processed by the application. The application and data file may be stored or provided via a server remote to the client. The user can request a computing environment from the server that provides for execution of the application by the user via the remote computer. For example, the server may stream the application to the remote client. The client and server may communicate via an appliance that accelerates communications between the client and server. For example, the appliance may accelerate the streaming of the application to the remote user. In some cases, the application or remote user may also request a data file from the server, and the appliance accelerates the delivery of the data file to the remote user. As such, users at remote locations obtain accelerated access via any network connected device to applications and data files located remotely to the user.

Systems and methods for accelerating delivery of a computing environment to remote user

In a network having transaction acceleration, for an accelerated transaction, a client directs a request to a client-side transaction handler that forwards the request to a server-side transaction handler, which in turn provides the request, or a representation thereof, to a server for responding to the request. The server sends the response to the server-side transaction handler, which forwards the response to the client-side transaction handler, which in turn provides the response to the client. Transactions are accelerated by the transaction handlers by storing segments of data used in the transactions in persistent segment storage accessible to the server-side transaction handler and in persistent segment storage accessible to the client-side transaction handler. When data is to be sent between the transaction handlers, the sending transaction handler compares the segments of the data to be sent with segments stored in its persistent segment storage and replaces segments of data with references to entries in its persistent segment storage that match or closely match the segments of data to be replaced. The receiving transaction store reconstructs the data sent by replacing segment references with corresponding segment data from its persistent segment storage, requesting missing segments from the sender as needed. The transaction accelerators could handle multiple clients and/or multiple servers and the segments stored in the persistent segment stores can relate to different transactions, different clients and/or different servers. Persistent segment stores can be prepopulated with segment data from other transaction accelerators.

Transaction accelerator for client-server communication systems

Enforcing network service level agreements in a network infrastructure element comprises receiving, at the network infrastructure element, an application-layer message comprising one or more of the packets; forwarding the application-layer message toward a destination endpoint and concurrently copying the application-layer message without disrupting the forwarding; using the copied application-layer message, discovering one or more applications or services that are using the network; using the copied application-layer message, identifying one or more network-layer condition metrics, and identifying one or more application-layer condition metrics; determining, based on the identified network-layer condition metrics and the application-layer condition metrics, whether one or more conditions of a service level agreement are violated; and in response to determining a violation, performing one or more responsive operations on one or more network elements.

Enforcing network service level agreements in a network element

A method is disclosed for generating a network topology representation based on inspection of application messages at a network device. According to one aspect, a network device receives a request packet, routes the packet to the destination, and extracts and stores correlation information from a copy of the request packet. When the network device receives a response packet, it examines the contents of a copy of the response packet using context-based correlation rules and matches the response packet with the appropriate stored request packet correlation information. It analyzes recorded correlation information to determine application-to-application mapping and calculate application response times. Another embodiment inserts custom headers that contain information used to match a response packet with a request packet into request packets.

Method and apparatus for generating a network topology representation based on inspection of application messages at a network device

A network infrastructure element such as a router or switch performs brokering network user identity and credential information. An application or administrative user can declare a policy for user identity information extraction, authentication and authorization. Based on the policy, the network element extracts user identity information or credentials from a transport-layer message header, application-layer message header, and message body. Based on the policy, the network element performs one or more authentication or authorization operations with the user identity information or credentials. As a result, a network element can broker identity information among incompatible applications and perform identity operations for the applications.

Identity brokering in a network element

The present invention provides an efficient system and method for routing information through a dynamic network. The system includes at least one ingress point and one egress point. The ingress and egress point cooperate to form a virtual circuit for routing packets to destination subnets directly reachable by the egress point. The egress point automatically discovers which subnets are directly accessible via its local ports and summarizes this information for the ingress point. The ingress point receives this information, compiles it into a routing table, and verifies that those subnets are best accessed by the egress point. Verification is accomplished by sending probe packets to select addresses on the subnet. Additionally, the egress point may continue to monitor the local topology and incrementally update the information to the ingress to allow the ingress to adjust its compiled routing table.

Efficient method and system for automatic discovery and verification of optimal paths through a dynamic multi-point meshed overlay network

A compression device recognizes patterns of data and compressing the data, and sends the compressed data to a decompression device that identifies a cached version of the data to decompress the data. In this way, the compression device need not resend high bandwidth traffic over the network. Both the compression device and the decompression device cache the data in packets they receive. Each device has a disk, on which each device writes the data in the same order. The compression device looks for repetitions of any block of data between multiple packets or datagrams that are transmitted across the network. The compression device encodes the repeated blocks of data by replacing them with a pointer to a location on disk. The decompression device receives the pointer and replaces the pointer with the contents of the data block that it reads from its disk.

Network acceleration and long-distance pattern detection using improved caching and disk mapping

A network system includes a first device and a second device separated by a network having asymmetric routes in which traffic forwarded in a first direction from the first device to the second device may travel a different route than traffic forwarded in a second direction from the second device to the first device. At least three intermediate processing devices are located between the first device and the second device, wherein at least two of the intermediate processing devices are located along different asymmetric routes. The intermediate processing devices intercept a communication flow between the first device and the second device, and encapsulate the communication flow within network tunnels so that communications associated with the communication flow in the first direction and the second direction are forwarded between a same set of at least two of the intermediate processing devices.

Processing communication flows in asymmetrically routed networks

A system and method that optimizes transmission control protocol (TCP) initial session establishment without intruding upon TCP's core algorithms. TCP's initially session establishment is accelerated by locally processing a source's initial TCP request within the source's local area network (LAN). A control module relatively near the source's local area network (LAN) and another control module relatively near a destination's LAN are utilized to complete the initial TCP session establishment within the source and the destination's respective LANs, thereby substantially eliminating the first round-trip time delay before the actual data flow begins. The first application-layer data packet thus can be transmitted at substantially the same time as the initial TCP request.

Transparent optimization for transmission control protocol initial session establishment

A system and method that optimizes transmission control protocol (TCP) flow control without intruding upon TCP's core algorithms. A control module relatively near a sender's local area network (LAN) automatically identifies a packet flow that has become window­limited. After the packet flow has been identified as window-limited, the control module relatively near the sender's LAN and another control module relatively near a receiver's LAN optimize the packet flow by increasing the window size indicated in the receiver's acknowledgment packet. Both control modules operate synchronously to transparently manage the packet flow between the sender and the receiver.

Balraj Singh

Papers

Efficient method and system for automatic discovery and verification of optimal paths through a dynamic multi-point meshed overlay network

Network acceleration and long-distance pattern detection using improved caching and disk mapping

Processing communication flows in asymmetrically routed networks

Transparent optimization for transmission control protocol initial session establishment

Transparent optimization for transmission control protocol flow control