U.S. patent application number 14/502501 was filed with the patent office on 2015-01-15 for distributed caching systems with configurable extended caching optimization.
The applicant listed for this patent is Seven Networks, Inc.. Invention is credited to Ari Backholm.
Application Number | 20150019686 14/502501 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 52277008 |
Filed Date | 2015-01-15 |
United States Patent
Application |
20150019686 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Backholm; Ari |
January 15, 2015 |
DISTRIBUTED CACHING SYSTEMS WITH CONFIGURABLE EXTENDED CACHING
OPTIMIZATION
Abstract
Methods and systems for distributed caching of information using
extended caching optimization are provided. According to one
aspect, a method for distributed caching of information using
extended caching optimization includes, at a mobile device for
operating in a wireless network, monitoring requests issued from an
application located within the device to an external entity not
located within the device; storing, in a local cache, responses to
the monitored requests received from the external entity; and, in
response to identifying a request as one that meets a first
criterion for optimization, applying an extended caching
optimization, including preventing the identified request from
being transmitted to the external entity and providing a response
to the identified request from the local cache.
Inventors: |
Backholm; Ari; (Los Altos,
CA) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Seven Networks, Inc. |
San Carlos |
CA |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
52277008 |
Appl. No.: |
14/502501 |
Filed: |
September 30, 2014 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
|
|
|
|
|
|
Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
|
PCT/US14/46537 |
Jul 14, 2014 |
|
|
|
14502501 |
|
|
|
|
61861933 |
Aug 2, 2013 |
|
|
|
61860331 |
Jul 31, 2013 |
|
|
|
61859364 |
Jul 29, 2013 |
|
|
|
61859056 |
Jul 26, 2013 |
|
|
|
61858013 |
Jul 24, 2013 |
|
|
|
61857114 |
Jul 22, 2013 |
|
|
|
61856343 |
Jul 19, 2013 |
|
|
|
61845752 |
Jul 12, 2013 |
|
|
|
Current U.S.
Class: |
709/217 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04W 4/18 20130101; H04L
43/16 20130101; H04L 67/2857 20130101; H04L 67/1095 20130101; H04L
67/2842 20130101; H04L 47/12 20130101; H04L 61/1511 20130101; H04W
28/14 20130101; H04L 67/06 20130101; H04L 67/42 20130101; H04L
47/32 20130101; H04L 67/289 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
709/217 |
International
Class: |
H04L 29/08 20060101
H04L029/08 |
Claims
1. A method for distributed caching of information using extended
caching optimization, the method comprising: at a mobile device for
operating in a wireless network, the device including a local proxy
for monitoring requests issued from an application located within
the device to an external entity not located within the device and
for storing, in a local cache, responses to the monitored requests
received from the external entity: identifying a request as one
that meets a first criterion for optimization; in response to
identifying the request as one that meets a first criterion for
optimization, applying an extended caching optimization, wherein
applying an extended caching optimization includes preventing the
identified request from being transmitted to the external entity,
and providing a response to the identified request from the local
cache; and at a proxy server located external to the mobile device
and for receiving requests from the mobile device, forwarding the
requests to content or service providers, receiving from the
content or service providers responses to the forwarded requests,
and providing the responses back to the mobile device: storing, in
a server cache, copies of the forwarded requests; storing, in the
server cache, copies of the received responses to the forwarded
requests; identifying a request/response pair as one that meets a
second criterion for optimization; and in response to identifying
the request/response pair as one that meets a second criterion for
optimization, preventing the response from being provided back to
the mobile device.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein, for each request/response pair
identified as meeting the second criterion for optimization, the
method includes: issuing, by the proxy server, a subsequent request
to the content or service provider on behalf of the mobile device;
receiving a reply to the subsequent request; and determining
whether to provide or not provide the reply back to the mobile
device and providing or not providing the reply according to the
determination.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein providing or not providing the
reply according to the determination includes providing the reply
to mobile device responsive to at least one of: a determination
that the reply differs from a received response stored in the
server cache; a determination that the reply has a high priority;
and a determination that the reply includes time critical data.
4. The method of claim 1 including, at the proxy server, responsive
to a determination that the reply differs from a received response
stored in the server cache, indicating to the local proxy that the
cached resource has changed.
5. The method of claim 4 wherein the local cache is refreshed from
the external entity immediately.
6. The method of claim 4 wherein the local cache is not refreshed
from the external entity until the screen is lit.
7. The method of claim 4 wherein the local cache is not refreshed
from the external entity until the screen is lit and the radio
transceiver is powered on or activated.
8. The method of claim 4 including, at the local proxy, responsive
to receipt of the indication that cached resource has changed,
performing at least one of: invalidating the cached resource
immediately; invalidating the cached resource when the screen is
lit; invalidating the cached resource when the screen is lit and
the radio transceiver is powered on or activated; and ignoring the
indication.
9. The method of claim 8 further including instructing the
application to request and receive data from the external
entity.
10. The method of claim 9 including providing a response to the
request from the local cache instead of from the external
entity.
11. A system for distributed caching of information using extended
caching optimization, the system including: a mobile device for
operating in a wireless network, the device including: a local
cache; a local proxy for monitoring requests issued from an
application located within the device to an external entity not
located within the device and for storing, in the local cache,
responses to the monitored requests received from the external
entity, wherein the local proxy is configured to identify a request
as one that meets a first criterion for optimization and apply an
extended caching optimization, and wherein applying an extended
caching optimization includes preventing the identified request
from being transmitted to the external entity, and providing a
response to the identified request from the local cache; and a
proxy server, located external to the mobile device, that receives
requests from the mobile device, forwards the requests to content
or service providers, receives from the content or service
providers responses to the forwarded requests, provides the
responses back to the mobile device, stores, in a server cache,
copies of the forwarded requests, stores, in the server cache,
copies of the received responses to the forwarded requests,
identifies a request/response pair as one that meets a second
criterion for optimization, and, responsive to identifying a
request/response pair as one that meets a second criterion for
optimization, prevents the response from being provided back to the
mobile device.
12. The system of claim 11 wherein, for each request/response pair
identified as meeting a criterion for optimization, the proxy
server issues a subsequent request to the content or service
provider on behalf of the mobile device, receives a reply to the
subsequent request, determines whether to provide or not provide
the reply back to the mobile device, and provides or not provides
the reply according to the determination.
13. The system of claim 12 wherein the proxy server provides or
does not provide the reply based on at least one of: a
determination that the reply differs from a received response
stored in the server cache; a determination that the reply has a
high priority; and a determination that the reply includes time
critical data.
14. The system of claim 11 wherein, responsive to a determination
that the reply differs from a received response stored in the
server cache, the proxy server indicates to the local proxy that
the cached resource has changed.
15. The system of claim 14 wherein, in response to receiving from
the proxy server the indication that the cached resource has
changed, the local cache is refreshed from the external entity
immediately.
16. The system of claim 14 wherein, in response to receiving from
the proxy server the indication that the cached resource has
changed, the local cache is not refreshed from the external entity
until the screen is lit.
17. The system of claim 14 wherein, in response to receiving from
the proxy server the indication that the cached resource has
changed, the local cache is not refreshed from the external entity
until the screen is lit and the radio transceiver is powered on or
activated.
18. The system of claim 14 wherein the local proxy, responds to
receipt of the indication that cached resource has changed by
invalidating the cached resource immediately, invalidating the
cached resource when the screen is lit, invalidating the cached
resource when the screen is lit and the radio transceiver is
powered on or activated, or ignoring the indication.
19. The system of claim 18 wherein the local proxy instructs the
application to request and receive data from the external
entity.
20. The system of embodiment 18 where the local proxy provides a
response to the request from the local cache instead of from the
external entity.
21. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon
executable instructions that when executed by the processor of a
computer control the computer to perform steps comprising: at a
mobile device for operating in a wireless network, the device
including a local proxy for monitoring requests issued from an
application located within the device to an external entity not
located within the device and for storing, in a local cache,
responses to the monitored requests received from the external
entity: identifying a request as one that meets a first criterion
for optimization; in response to identifying the request as one
that meets a first criterion for optimization, applying an extended
caching optimization, wherein applying an extended caching
optimization includes preventing the identified request from being
transmitted to the external entity, and providing a response to the
identified request from the local cache; and at a proxy server
located external to the mobile device and for receiving requests
from the mobile device, forwarding the requests to content or
service providers, receiving from the content or service providers
responses to the forwarded requests, and providing the responses
back to the mobile device: storing, in a server cache, copies of
the forwarded requests; storing, in the server cache, copies of the
received responses to the forwarded requests; identifying a
request/response pair as one that meets a second criterion for
optimization; and in response to identifying the request/response
pair as one that meets a second criterion for optimization,
preventing the response from being provided back to the mobile
device.
Description
PRIORITY CLAIM
[0001] This application is a continuation of International Patent
Application Serial No. PCT/US14/46537, filed Jul. 14, 2014, which
claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No.
61/845,752, filed Jul. 12, 2013; U.S. Provisional Patent
Application Ser. No. 61/856,343, filed Jul. 19, 2013; U.S.
Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/857,114, filed Jul. 22,
2013; U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/858,013,
filed Jul. 24, 2013; U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No.
61/859,056, filed Jul. 26, 2013; U.S. Provisional Patent
Application Ser. No. 61/859,364, filed Jul. 29, 2013; U.S.
Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/860,331, filed Jul. 31,
2013; and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/861,933,
filed Aug. 2, 2013, the disclosures of each of which are
incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0002] This disclosure relates to signaling optimization in
telecommunication networks and data networks. More specifically, it
relates to methods and systems for reducing traffic to and from a
mobile device via the implementation of distributed caching systems
with configurable extended caching optimization.
BACKGROUND
[0003] The constant connections and disconnections of a mobile
device to services and entities within a telecommunication and/or
data network increase the amount of signaling network traffic
within that network, which lowers the performance of the network
overall. This imposes a burden upon network operators that forces
them to increase bandwidth and network access.
[0004] It is very common for a mobile device to be receiving data
from multiple sources (e.g., servers, web-sites, nodes of a
network, etc.) in the service network. Smart phones, for example,
may run several applications in parallel, and each application may
engage in a periodic or non-periodic handshake with a network
server, such as to check to see if there is any content to be
downloaded to the mobile device or uploaded from the mobile device,
to determine whether the connection between the mobile device and
server should still be maintained, and so on.
[0005] In some circumstances, these handshaking interactions have
little or no value to a user, such as when the user is not
currently engaged in active use of the device, e.g., when the
screen is dark or when the device is lying unused in a purse or
backpack. Even when the user is actively using the device, an
application on the device that continually polls a server to
determine if there is content, such as text messages, email, etc.,
available may generate needless traffic if there is no content for
the mobile device/user of that device.
[0006] In addition, such transactions typically put the mobile
device radio in a high-power mode for a considerable length of
time--typically between 15-30 seconds. As the high-power mode can
consume as much as 100.times. the power as an idle mode, these
network-initiated applications are power hungry and can quickly
drain the battery. The issue has been exacerbated by the rapid
increase of the popularity of applications with network-initiated
functionalities, such as push email, news feeds, status updates,
multimedia content sharing and other mobile applications, etc.
Furthermore, the problem with constant polling is that mobile
phones also rely on signaling to send and receive calls and SMS
messages and sometimes these basic mobile functions are forced to
take a backseat to unruly applications and other mobile
clients.
[0007] Thus, not only do these transactions consume battery power
of the device--e.g., to activate an otherwise dormant radio
transceiver circuit--the traffic so generated by these handshaking
transactions consumes wireless bandwidth, such as between the
mobile device and the cell tower, for example.
[0008] Therefore, in light of these disadvantages associated with
conventional interactions between applications residing on a mobile
device and the network entities with which the mobile device and
its applications may interact, there is a need to optimize or
reduce this kind of traffic. More specifically, there is a need for
distributed caching systems with configurable extended caching
optimization.
SUMMARY
[0009] According to one aspect, a method for distributed caching of
information using extended caching optimization. The method
includes, at a mobile device for operating in a wireless network,
monitoring requests issued from an application located within the
device to an external entity not located within the device;
storing, in a local cache, responses to the monitored requests
received from the external entity; and, in response to identifying
a request as one that meets a first criterion for optimization,
applying an extended caching optimization, including preventing the
identified request from being transmitted to the external entity
and providing a response to the identified request from the local
cache.
[0010] According to another aspect, the subject matter described
herein includes a system for distributed caching of information
using extended caching optimization. The system includes a mobile
device for operating in a wireless network. The device includes a
local cache and a local proxy for monitoring requests issued from
an application located within the device to an external entity not
located within the device and for storing, in the local cache,
responses to the monitored requests received from the external
entity. The local proxy identifies a request as one that meets a
first criterion for optimization and applies an extended caching
optimization, including preventing the identified request from
being transmitted to the external entity and providing a response
to the identified request from the local cache.
[0011] According to yet another aspect, the subject matter
described herein includes a computer program product for
distributed caching of information using extended caching
optimization. The computer program product includes a
non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer
readable code embodied therewith, the computer readable code
configured for at a mobile device for operating in a wireless
network, monitoring requests issued from an application located
within the device to an external entity not located within the
device; storing, in a local cache, responses to the monitored
requests received from the external entity; and, in response to
identifying a request as one that meets a first criterion for
optimization, applying an extended caching optimization, including
preventing the identified request from being transmitted to the
external entity and providing a response to the identified request
from the local cache.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0012] The present embodiments are illustrated by way of example
and are not intended to be limited by the figures of the
accompanying drawings. In the drawings:
[0013] FIG. 1A depicts a diagram illustrating example resources,
including an extended caching optimization engine and an extended
caching optimization manager that can function individually and/or
together to implement the techniques disclosed herein;
[0014] FIG. 1B depicts an example diagram of a system where a host
server facilitates management of traffic, content caching, and/or
resource conservation, and/or extended caching optimization;
[0015] FIG. 1C depicts an example diagram of a proxy and cache
system distributed between the host server and device which
facilitates network traffic management and/or extended caching
optimization;
[0016] FIG. 1D depicts an example diagram of the logical
architecture of a distributed proxy and cache system;
[0017] FIG. 1E depicts an example diagram showing the architecture
of client side components in a distributed proxy and cache system
with an extended caching optimization engine implemented on the
client-side proxy;
[0018] FIG. 1F depicts an example diagram of the example components
on the server side of the distributed proxy and cache system with
an extended caching optimization manager implemented on the
server-side proxy;
[0019] FIG. 1G depicts an example diagram of a signaling optimizer
of the distributed proxy and cache system;
[0020] FIG. 1H depicts an example diagram of an example
client-server architecture of the distributed proxy and cache
system;
[0021] FIG. 1I depicts an example diagram illustrating data flows
between example client side components in a distributed proxy and
cache system;
[0022] FIG. 2A depicts a block diagram illustrating an example of
client-side components in a distributed proxy and cache system
residing on a mobile device (e.g., wireless device) that manages
traffic in a wireless network (or broadband network) for resource
conservation, content caching, traffic management, and/or extended
caching optimization;
[0023] FIG. 2B depicts a block diagram illustrating a further
example of components in the cache system shown in the example of
FIG. 2A;
[0024] FIG. 2C depicts a block diagram illustrating additional
components in the application behavior detector and the caching
policy manager in the cache system shown in the example of FIG.
2A;
[0025] FIG. 2D depicts a block diagram illustrating examples of
additional components in the local cache shown in the example of
FIG. 2A;
[0026] FIG. 3A depicts a block diagram illustrating an example of
server-side components in a distributed proxy and cache system that
manages traffic in a wireless network (or broadband network) for
resource conservation, content caching, traffic management, and/or
extended caching optimization;
[0027] FIG. 3B depicts a block diagram illustrating a further
example of components in the caching policy manager in the cache
system shown in the example of FIG. 3A;
[0028] FIG. 3C depicts a block diagram illustrating another example
of components in the proxy system shown in the example of FIG.
3A;
[0029] FIG. 3D depicts a block diagram illustrating examples of
additional components in proxy server shown in the example of FIG.
3A;
[0030] FIG. 4A depicts a block diagram illustrating another example
of client-side components in a distributed proxy and cache system,
further including an extended caching optimization engine;
[0031] FIG. 4B depicts a block diagram illustrating additional
components in the extended caching optimization engine shown in the
example of FIG. 4A;
[0032] FIG. 5A depicts a block diagram illustrating an example of
server-side components in a distributed proxy and cache system,
further including an extended caching optimization manager;
[0033] FIG. 5B depicts a block diagram illustrating additional
components in the extended caching optimization manager shown in
the example of FIG. 5A;
[0034] FIG. 6 depicts a diagrammatic representation of a machine in
the example form of a computer system within which a set of
instructions, for causing the machine to perform any one or more of
the methodologies discussed herein, may be executed; and
[0035] FIG. 7 depicts a flowchart illustrating an exemplary process
for distributed caching of information using extended caching
optimization according to an embodiment of the subject matter
described herein.
[0036] The same reference numbers and any acronyms identify
elements or acts with the same or similar structure or
functionality throughout the drawings and specification for ease of
understanding and convenience.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0037] The following description and drawings are illustrative and
are not to be construed as limiting. Numerous specific details are
described to provide a thorough understanding of the disclosure.
However, in certain instances, well-known or conventional details
are not described in order to avoid obscuring the description.
References to one or an embodiment in the present disclosure can
be, but not necessarily are, references to the same embodiment;
and, such references mean at least one of the embodiments.
[0038] Reference in this specification to "one embodiment" or "an
embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure, or
characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is
included in at least one embodiment of the disclosure. The
appearances of the phrase "in one embodiment" in various places in
the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same
embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodiments mutually
exclusive of other embodiments. Moreover, various features are
described which may be exhibited by some embodiments and not by
others. Similarly, various requirements are described which may be
requirements for some embodiments but not other embodiments.
[0039] The terms used in this specification generally have their
ordinary meanings in the art, within the context of the disclosure,
and in the specific context where each term is used. Certain terms
that are used to describe the disclosure are discussed below, or
elsewhere in the specification, to provide additional guidance to
the practitioner regarding the description of the disclosure. For
convenience, certain terms may be highlighted, for example using
italics and/or quotation marks. The use of highlighting has no
influence on the scope and meaning of a term; the scope and meaning
of a term is the same, in the same context, whether or not it is
highlighted. It will be appreciated that same thing can be said in
more than one way.
[0040] Consequently, alternative language and synonyms may be used
for any one or more of the terms discussed herein, nor is any
special significance to be placed upon whether or not a term is
elaborated or discussed herein. Synonyms for certain terms are
provided. A recital of one or more synonyms does not exclude the
use of other synonyms. The use of examples anywhere in this
specification including examples of any terms discussed herein is
illustrative only, and is not intended to further limit the scope
and meaning of the disclosure or of any exemplified term. Likewise,
the disclosure is not limited to various embodiments given in this
specification.
[0041] Without intent to limit the scope of the disclosure,
examples of instruments, apparatus, methods and their related
results according to the embodiments of the present disclosure are
given below. Note that titles or subtitles may be used in the
examples for convenience of a reader, which in no way should limit
the scope of the disclosure. Unless otherwise defined, all
technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as
commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which
this disclosure pertains. In the case of conflict, the present
document, including definitions will control.
[0042] FIG. 1A depicts a diagram 10 illustrating example resources
that implement the extended caching optimization techniques
disclosed herein. Included in the diagram 10 are a mobile device
101, a host server 111, a plurality of third-party servers 119, and
a communications network 117.
[0043] The mobile device 101 and host servers 111, 119 are coupled
in communication for data transmission over the network 117. For
example, the components may be connected via a twisted pair cabling
network, a coax cable network, a telephonic network, or any
suitable type of connection network. In some embodiments, the
network 117 may be wireless. The technologies supporting the
communications between the mobile device 101 and host servers 111,
119 may include Ethernet, cellular, WiFi, and/or other suitable
types of area network technologies. One of ordinary skill in the
art will understand that the components of FIG. 1 are just one
implementation of the computer network environment within which
present embodiments may be implemented, and the various alternative
embodiments are within the scope of the present embodiments. For
example, the network 117 may include intervening devices (e.g.,
switches, routers, hubs, base stations, etc.) in the network 117.
In some examples, the network 117 comprises the Internet. Depending
on the embodiments, mobile device 101 can be connected directly to
the host server 111, or via the network 117, or both.
[0044] The host server 111 may be one or more server computers or
work stations that are employed by a merchant for hosting websites
that function as a channel to customer users for browsing products
and placing purchase orders. The host server 111 typically includes
at least one processor and a memory, and may be further connected
to one or more computers (not shown in FIG. 1 for simplicity) that
manage inventory, logistics and/or other commercial functions via
the network 117. The host server 111 may be a host server that
facilitates management of traffic, content caching, and/or resource
conservation (e.g., the host server 100, described in FIG. 1B
below) or another server that is separate from the host server 100.
Depending on the embodiments, this separate server may be a portion
of the host server 100, or it may be hosted by a third party (e.g.,
the third-party server 119).
[0045] The mobile device 101, which may be used by a customer user
to communicate with the host server 111, may include a laptop, a
tablet, a personal computer, a personal digital assistant ("PDA"),
a smart phone, and the like. The mobile device 101 typically
includes a display (not shown in FIG. 1 for simplicity), and may
include suitable input devices (not shown for simplicity) such as a
keyboard, a mouse, or a touchpad. In some embodiments, the display
may be a touch-sensitive screen that includes input
functionalities.
[0046] Applications 102 (e.g., applications 102A-102N) are example
applications of the mobile device 101. Applications 102 on mobile
device 101 can communicate directly to the third-party servers 119
via the network 117. Some examples of applications 102 include news
application, weather services, email clients, and/or social network
applications. In general, each application 102 has a plurality of
data relevant or necessary to the normal operations of the
application. It is also typical that these applications 102
routinely communicate with the third-party servers 119 (e.g., via
well-known polling techniques) for any update, and receive the
updates via the network 117, using one or more radio communication
modules (not shown in FIG. 1 for simplicity).
[0047] Signal Optimization
[0048] The embodiments disclosed herein recognize that the number
and capability of mobile devices have increased dramatically in
recent years, putting tremendous pressure on mobile carriers to
optimize and manage finite network resources. Subscribers use their
devices more intensively than ever, installing any number of
countless thousands of applications. Carriers have no control over
what applications are installed on end-user devices or the behavior
of those apps. This has led to a loss of operator control over
mobile data traffic itself.
[0049] Accordingly, as is described in more detail below, the
present disclosure addresses these challenges by optimizing and
managing signaling activity, increasing control over data traffic
for mobile carriers. It conserves network bandwidth, freeing
capacity for uses that provide the highest value to
subscribers.
[0050] More specifically, many mobile applications (e.g.,
applications 102A-102N) regularly poll their application servers
119A-119N to check for new data. Every time an application (e.g.,
application 102A) checks for updates, even when no new data is
available, the device signals the wireless network (e.g., network
117). This signaling activity creates congestion as the radio
network is overwhelmed with constant requests to connect. Network
bandwidth is wasted when applications repeatedly download unchanged
content. Carriers face increasing costs as they are forced to
expand capacity to accommodate both excessive signaling activity
and increasing demand for bandwidth. Unnecessary mobile signaling
has an adverse effect on end-user experience, including longer
setup times, slower speeds, and even denial of service. It results
in shorter battery life for devices (e.g., device 101)--an issue
that impacts both subscribers and device manufacturers.
[0051] In general, the signaling optimization techniques disclosed
herein significantly reduce mobile signaling to relieve mobile
network congestion. The techniques can manage the exchange of
control information and content between mobile devices and the
network, using various virtualized proxy and caching technologies.
They can analyze mobile application data requests, transparently
detect redundant traffic patterns and cache the results of
unnecessary requests on the client. The signal optimization server
(e.g., host server 111) polls for updates, so that the client
(e.g., device 101, through local proxy 105) connects to the network
only when updates are available. Optimizing signaling at the
handset prevents consumption of network resources, enabling more
efficient use of those resources. Caching content on the client
(e.g., at local cache 185) also reduces network bandwidth
utilization. In one embodiment, local cache 185 may be used to
store copies of requests received from applications 102, copies of
responses received from host server 111, or other useful
information.
[0052] The disclosed signaling optimization techniques reduce
operators' costs by delaying the need for expensive upgrades to
wireless network infrastructure. They improve subscriber experience
by increasing service levels and extending the battery life of
mobile devices.
[0053] Moreover, it is noted that the signaling optimization
techniques disclosed herein are transparent to end users and to the
operation of their mobile apps, with a minimal impact on device CPU
and memory. The techniques which can be implemented in form of, for
example, software require no (or little, if any) changes to
applications or to the network itself, thereby supporting any
underlying mobile network technology. These techniques can also
complement other techniques for mobile traffic management,
including compression and deep packet inspection.
[0054] Overall, among other benefits, the disclosed techniques can
reduce wireless operator costs, conserve mobile network bandwidth,
significantly reduce mobile signaling, delay the needs for wireless
infrastructure upgrades, and extend device battery life and
improves service levels.
[0055] In accordance with some embodiments, a client component
(e.g., local proxy 105) and a server component (e.g., proxy server
113) can either individually or together or both perform the signal
optimization techniques. Customers can choose between two
deployment models for the server software. In some embodiments,
Hosted deployment allows customers to get the solution up and
running as quickly as possible.
[0056] In-network deployment of the server software is recommended
for customers who want in-house, hands-on control over all aspects
of the solution. In this model, the management server resides in
the customer data center. Pushing optimization to the client stops
unnecessary signaling before it can consume network resources. This
is in contrast to conventional approaches to addressing the
signaling challenge, which rely on network-side capabilities such
as deep packet inspection.
[0057] Signal Optimization--Extended Caching
[0058] It is a goal for the network carriers seek to maximize the
aggregate value provided by finite network resources across the
entire subscriber base, which requires that these resources be
allocated to their highest-value uses. This approach allows the
carriers to maximize their ability to monetize infrastructure
investments. The "Extended Caching" techniques, which are disclosed
herein and will be described in more details below, are a powerful
tool in achieving these goals.
[0059] More specifically, it is recognized by the disclosed
embodiments that there is an inherent trade-off in the frequency of
updates for mobile apps and the consumption of network resources.
When no update is available, the present embodiments recognize that
connecting to the network serves no useful purpose and needlessly
consumes network resources.
[0060] Furthermore, even when an update is available, the user may
not derive much or any benefit from it as not all updates are
created equal--end users derive more benefit from some updates than
others. Updates that occur when a device is actively being used are
more useful and valuable to the user than those that occur when the
device is asleep. The cost, in terms of mobile network resource
consumed in providing updates, may easily exceed the benefit;
especially if the device is not being actively used. For example,
when the screen is not lit and the radio is inactive, the user may
have left the device in another room. In this common situation, no
benefit is received, but network resources are consumed. Thus,
network resources are being misallocated in the sense that they are
being applied in a way that yields little or no subscriber value.
The subscriber base as a whole is better served if those network
resources are allocated to users who are actually using their
devices at the time. Information on the device state can serve as a
useful tool for carriers to determine the benefit that an update
provides.
[0061] As such, in some embodiments, such as system 10 shown in
FIG. 1A, the local proxy 105 includes an extended caching
optimization engine 107, and the proxy server 113 includes an
extended caching optimization manager 115 that can function
individually and/or together to implement the techniques disclosed
herein. In one embodiment, proxy server 113 may include a server
cache 135, which may be used to store requests received from mobile
device 101, responses received from servers 119, or other useful
information.
[0062] Configurable Settings in Extended Caching Optimization
[0063] The extended caching optimization engine 107 (and/or the
extended caching optimization manager 115) includes configurable
cache settings to fine tune the way the product responds to changes
in cached resources. For example, extended caching optimization
engine 107 can apply to situations when the screen is not lit or
the radio is not connected to the network. These device states
correspond to situations where the user is likely to receive less
benefit from an update, even when one is available. Extended cache
settings delay delivery of updates in device states where the end
user receives less benefit from getting an update at that
particular moment in time.
[0064] The extended caching optimization engine 107 (and/or the
extended caching optimization manager 115) includes a configurable,
"tunable" parameter because carriers require fine-grained control
to allocate finite resources to the highest-value use case. The
choice of which configuration settings to use can be a judgment
call on the part of the carrier, and can be made in the context of
each carrier network's unique subscriber base, usage patterns, and
behaviors. As an example of the flexibility of the configurable
settings, the lowest setting level (default) tunes the product to
favor priority of end-user experience over congestion
relief/battery life. This is in contrast to the highest setting
level that favors congestion relief/battery life over priority of
end-user experience.
[0065] The Extended Caching settings can be modified in real time
using either an application programming interface (API) (e.g., a
proprietary "REST" API as provided by SEVEN Networks Inc.) or a
Management Web Interface. Changes to settings are communicated to
in-market devices immediately (e.g., from the optimization manager
115 to the optimization engine 107). Devices (e.g., device 101)
that may be powered off at the time of the change receives the most
recent update when they return to the network 117.
[0066] In some embodiments, Extended Caching settings apply to all
applications that are being optimized by Open Channel Signaling
Optimization. In some other embodiments, Extended Caching to be
enabled for selective applications.
[0067] Also, in one or more embodiments, Extended Caching levels
can be set on an individual user basis. This can be done via
integration with the REST API. In addition, some embodiments
support creation of Extended Caching Groups which can be used to
associate users with common data plans, etc., to specific Extended
Caching settings.
[0068] These and various other embodiments and implementations of
the disclosed extended caching optimization (ECO) techniques in
achieving aggressive signal optimization, as well as various
components in the embodiments of ECO techniques (e.g., ECO engine
107 and/or ECO manager 115), are described in more details below.
It is further noted that some specific examples of the extended
caching optimization engine 107 and the extended caching
optimization manager 115, including their behaviors under different
configurable settings in performing different functions (e.g.,
which may be aimed at solving different scenarios) are introduced
in relation to FIGS. 4A, 4B, 5A and 5B.
[0069] FIG. 1B illustrates an example diagram of a system where a
host server 100 facilitates management of traffic, content caching,
and/or resource conservation and/or signal optimization or extended
caching optimization between mobile devices (e.g., wireless devices
150), and an application server or content provider 110, or other
servers such as an ad server 120A, promotional content server 120B,
or an e-coupon server 120C in a wireless network (or broadband
network) for resource conservation. The host server 100 can further
interact with mobile or client devices 150 for getting reports
and/or updates on resource usage, savings, and the like.
[0070] Client device 150 can be any system and/or device, and/or
any combination of devices/systems that is able to establish a
connection, including wired, wireless, and cellular connections,
with another device, a server, and/or other systems, such as host
server 100 and/or application server/content provider 110. Client
devices 150 may provide to a user 103 a user interface 104, which
may include a display and/or other output functionalities to
present information and data exchanged between among the devices
150 and/or the host server 100 and/or application server/content
provider 110. The application server/content provider 110 can by
any server, including third party servers or service/content
providers further including advertisement, promotional content,
publication, or electronic coupon servers or services. Similarly,
separate advertisement servers 120A, promotional content servers
120B, and/or e-Coupon servers 120C as application servers or
content providers are illustrated by way of example.
[0071] For example, client devices 150 can include mobile, hand
held or portable devices, wireless devices, or non-portable devices
and can be any of, but not limited to, a server desktop, a desktop
computer, a computer cluster, or portable devices, including a
notebook, a laptop computer, a handheld computer, a palmtop
computer, a mobile phone, a cell phone, a smart phone, a PDA, a
Blackberry device, a Palm device, a handheld tablet (e.g., an iPad
or any other tablet), a hand held console, a hand held gaming
device or console, any SuperPhone such as the iPhone, and/or any
other portable, mobile, hand held devices, or fixed wireless
interface such as a M2M device, etc. In one embodiment, the client
devices 150, host server 100, and application server 110 are
coupled via a network 106 and/or a network 108. In one embodiment,
network 106 may be a cellular or mobile network, which device 150
may connect to via a base station, radio network controller, or
radio access network, represented in FIG. 1B as a cell phone tower
112. In some embodiments, the devices 150 and host server 100 may
be directly connected to one another.
[0072] The input mechanism on client devices 150 can include touch
screen keypad (including single touch, multi-touch, gesture sensing
in 2D or 3D, etc.), a physical keypad, a mouse, a pointer, a track
pad, motion detector (e.g., including 1-axis, 2-axis, 3-axis
accelerometer, etc.), a light sensor, capacitance sensor,
resistance sensor, temperature sensor, proximity sensor, a
piezoelectric device, device orientation detector (e.g., electronic
compass, tilt sensor, rotation sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer),
or a combination of the above.
[0073] Signals received or detected indicating user activity at
client devices 150 through one or more of the above input
mechanism, or others, can be used in the disclosed technology in
acquiring context awareness at the client device 150. Context
awareness at client devices 150 generally includes, by way of
example but not limitation, client device 150 operation or state
acknowledgement, management, user activity/behavior/interaction
awareness, detection, sensing, tracking, trending, and/or
application (e.g., mobile applications) type, behavior, activity,
operating state, etc.
[0074] Context awareness in the present disclosure also includes
knowledge and detection of network side contextual data and can
include network information such as network capacity, bandwidth,
traffic, type of network/connectivity, and/or any other operational
state data and/or mobile application loading and/or activities.
Network side contextual data can be received from and/or queried
from network service providers (e.g., cell provider 112 and/or
Internet service providers) of the network 106 and/or network 108
(e.g., by the host server and/or devices 150). In addition to
application context awareness as determined from the client 150
side, the application context awareness may also be received from
or obtained/queried from the respective application/service
providers 110 (by the host 100 and/or client devices 150).
[0075] The host server 100 can use, for example, contextual
information obtained for client devices 150, networks 106/108,
applications (e.g., mobile applications), application
server/provider 110, or any combination of the above, to manage the
traffic in the system to satisfy data needs of the client devices
150 (e.g., to satisfy application or any other request including
HTTP request). In one embodiment, the traffic is managed by the
host server 100 to satisfy data requests made in response to
explicit or non-explicit user 103 requests and/or
device/application maintenance tasks. The traffic can be managed
such that network consumption, for example, use of the cellular
network is conserved for effective and efficient bandwidth
utilization. In addition, the host server 100 can manage and
coordinate such traffic in the system such that use of device 150
side resources (e.g., including but not limited to battery power
consumption, radio use, processor/memory use) are optimized with a
general philosophy for resource conservation while still optimizing
performance and user experience.
[0076] For example, in context of battery conservation, the device
150 can observe user activity (for example, by observing user
keystrokes, backlight status, or other signals via one or more
input mechanisms, etc.) and alter device 150 behaviors. The device
150 can also request the host server 100 to alter the behavior for
network resource consumption based on user activity or
behavior.
[0077] In one embodiment, the traffic management for resource
conservation and/or mobile application offloading are performed
using a distributed system between the host server 100 and client
device 150. The distributed system can include proxy server and
cache components on the server side 100 and on the device/client
side, for example, as shown by the server cache 135 on the server
100 side and the local cache 185 on the client 150 side.
[0078] Functions and techniques disclosed for context aware traffic
management and/or mobile application offloading for resource
conservation in networks (e.g., network 106 and/or 108) and devices
150, can reside in a distributed proxy and cache system. The proxy
and cache system can be distributed between, and reside on, a given
client device 150 in part or in whole and/or host server 100 in
part or in whole. The distributed proxy and cache system are
illustrated with further reference to the example diagram shown in
FIG. 1C. Notably, in some embodiments of such systems, the host
server 100 can include or correspond to the host server 111 (FIG.
1A), the application server 110 can include or correspond to the
third-party servers 119 (FIG. 1A), and/or the mobile device 150 can
include or correspond to the mobile device 101 (FIG. 1A).
[0079] In one embodiment, client devices 150 communicate with the
host server 100 and/or the application server 110 over network 106,
which can be a cellular network and/or a broadband network. To
facilitate overall traffic management and/or signal optimization
between devices 150 and various application servers/content
providers 110 to implement network (bandwidth utilization) and
device resource (e.g., battery consumption), the host server 100
can communicate with the application server/providers 110 over the
network 108, which can include the Internet (e.g., a broadband
network).
[0080] In general, the networks 106 and/or 108, over which the
client devices 150, the host server 100, and/or application server
110 communicate, may be a cellular network, a broadband network, a
telephonic network, an open network, such as the Internet, or a
private network, such as an intranet and/or the extranet, or any
combination thereof. For example, the Internet can provide file
transfer, remote log in, email, news, RSS, cloud-based services,
instant messaging, visual voicemail, push mail, VoIP, and other
services through any known or convenient protocol, such as, but is
not limited to the TCP/IP protocol, UDP, HTTP, DNS, FTP, UPnP, NSF,
ISDN, PDH, RS-232, SDH, SONET, etc.
[0081] The networks 106 and/or 108 can be any collection of
distinct networks operating wholly or partially in conjunction to
provide connectivity to the client devices 150 and the host server
100 and may appear as one or more networks to the serviced systems
and devices. In one embodiment, communications to and from the
client devices 150 can be achieved by, an open network, such as the
Internet, or a private network, broadband network, such as an
intranet and/or the extranet. In one embodiment, communications can
be achieved by a secure communications protocol, such as secure
sockets layer (SSL), or transport layer security (TLS).
[0082] In addition, communications can be achieved via one or more
networks, such as, but are not limited to, one or more of WiMax, a
Local Area Network (LAN), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), a
Personal area network (PAN), a Campus area network (CAN), a
Metropolitan area network (MAN), a Wide area network (WAN), a
Wireless wide area network (WWAN), or any broadband network, and
further enabled with technologies such as, by way of example,
Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Personal
Communications Service (PCS), Bluetooth, WiFi, Fixed Wireless Data,
2G, 2.5G, 3G, 4G, IMT-Advanced, pre-4G, LTE Advanced, mobile WiMax,
WiMax 2, WirelessMAN-Advanced networks, enhanced data rates for GSM
evolution (EDGE), General packet radio service (GPRS), enhanced
GPRS, iBurst, UMTS, HSPDA, HSUPA, HSPA, UMTS-TDD, 1xRTT, EV-DO,
messaging protocols such as, TCP/IP, SMS, MMS, extensible messaging
and presence protocol (XMPP), real time messaging protocol (RTMP),
instant messaging and presence protocol (IMPP), instant messaging,
USSD, IRC, or any other wireless data networks, broadband networks,
or messaging protocols.
[0083] FIG. 1C illustrates an example diagram of a proxy and cache
system distributed between the host server 100 and device 150 which
facilitates network traffic management and/or signal optimization
(including extended caching) between the device 150 and an
application server or content provider 110, or other servers such
as an ad server 120A, promotional content server 120B, or an
e-coupon server 120C for resource conservation and content caching
The proxy system distributed among the host server 100 and the
device 150 can further track alarms, timers or other triggers
implemented by applications on a device and resources used by such
alarms, timers, or other triggers to determine associations using
which the proxy system can manipulate the alarms, timers or other
triggers to occur at an optimal time to reduce resource usage.
[0084] The distributed proxy and cache system can include, for
example, the proxy server 125 (e.g., remote proxy) and the server
cache, 135 components on the server side. The server-side proxy 125
and cache 135 can, as illustrated, reside internal to the host
server 100. In addition, the proxy server 125 and cache 135 on the
server-side can be partially or wholly external to the host server
100 and in communication via one or more of the networks 106 and
108. For example, the proxy server 125 may be external to the host
server and the server cache 135 may be maintained at the host
server 100. Alternatively, the proxy server 125 may be within the
host server 100 while the server cache is external to the host
server 100. In addition, each of the proxy server 125 and the cache
135 may be partially internal to the host server 100 and partially
external to the host server 100. The application server/content
provider 110 can by any server including third party servers or
service/content providers further including advertisement,
promotional content, publication, or electronic coupon servers or
services. Similarly, separate advertisement servers 120A,
promotional content servers 120B, and/or e-Coupon servers 120C as
application servers or content providers are illustrated by way of
example.
[0085] The distributed system can also, include, in one embodiment,
client-side components, including by way of example but not
limitation, a local proxy 175 (e.g., a mobile client on a mobile
device) and/or a local cache 185, which can, as illustrated, reside
internal to the device 150 (e.g., a mobile device).
[0086] In addition, the client-side proxy 175 and local cache 185
can be partially or wholly external to the device 150 and in
communication via one or more of the networks 106 and 108. For
example, the local proxy 175 may be external to the device 150 and
the local cache 185 may be maintained at the device 150.
Alternatively, the local proxy 175 may be within the device 150
while the local cache 185 is external to the device 150. In
addition, each of the proxy 175 and the cache 185 may be partially
internal to the host server 100 and partially external to the host
server 100.
[0087] In one embodiment, the distributed system can include an
optional caching proxy server 199. The caching proxy server 199 can
be a component which is operated by the application server/content
provider 110, the host server 100, or a network service provider
112, and or any combination of the above to facilitate network
traffic management for network and device resource conservation.
Proxy server 199 can be used, for example, for caching content to
be provided to the device 150, for example, from one or more of,
the application server/provider 110, host server 100, and/or a
network service provider 112. Content caching can also be entirely
or partially performed by the remote proxy 125 to satisfy
application requests or other data requests at the device 150.
[0088] In context aware traffic management and optimization for
resource conservation in a network (e.g., cellular or other
wireless networks), characteristics of user activity/behavior
and/or application behavior at a mobile device (e.g., any wireless
device) 150 can be tracked by the local proxy 175 and communicated,
over the network 106 to the proxy server 125 component in the host
server 100, for example, as connection metadata. The proxy server
125 which in turn is coupled to the application server/provider 110
provides content and data to satisfy requests made at the device
150.
[0089] In addition, the local proxy 175 can identify and retrieve
mobile device properties, including one or more of, battery level,
network that the device is registered on, radio state, or whether
the mobile device is being used (e.g., interacted with by a user).
In some instances, the local proxy 175 can delay, expedite
(prefetch), and/or modify data prior to transmission to the proxy
server 125, when appropriate.
[0090] The local database 185 can be included in the local proxy
175 or coupled to the local proxy 175 and can be queried for a
locally stored response to the data request prior to the data
request being forwarded on to the proxy server 125. Locally cached
responses can be used by the local proxy 175 to satisfy certain
application requests of the mobile device 150, by retrieving cached
content stored in the cache storage 185, when the cached content is
still valid.
[0091] Similarly, the proxy server 125 of the host server 100 can
also delay, expedite, or modify data from the local proxy prior to
transmission to the content sources (e.g., the application
server/content provider 110). In addition, the proxy server 125
uses device properties and connection metadata to generate rules
for satisfying request of applications on the mobile device 150.
The proxy server 125 can gather real time traffic information about
requests of applications for later use in optimizing similar
connections with the mobile device 150 or other mobile devices.
[0092] In general, the local proxy 175 and the proxy server 125 are
transparent to the multiple applications executing on the mobile
device. The local proxy 175 is generally transparent to the
operating system or platform of the mobile device and may or may
not be specific to device manufacturers. In some instances, the
local proxy 175 is optionally customizable in part or in whole to
be device specific. In some embodiments, the local proxy 175 may be
bundled into a wireless model, a firewall, and/or a router.
[0093] In one embodiment, the host server 100 can in some
instances, utilize the store and forward functions of a short
message service center (SMSC) 114, such as that provided by the
network service provider, in communicating with the device 150 in
achieving network traffic management. Note that 114 can also
utilize any other type of alternative channel including USSD or
other network control mechanisms. The host server 100 can forward
content or HTTP responses to the SMSC 114 such that it is
automatically forwarded to the device 150 if available, and for
subsequent forwarding if the device 150 is not currently
available.
[0094] In general, the disclosed distributed proxy and cache system
allows optimization of network usage, for example, by serving
requests from the local cache 185, the local proxy 175 reduces the
number of requests that need to be satisfied over the network 106.
Further, the local proxy 175 and the proxy server 125 may filter
irrelevant data from the communicated data. In addition, the local
proxy 175 and the proxy server 125 can also accumulate low priority
data and send it in batches to avoid the protocol overhead of
sending individual data fragments. The local proxy 175 and the
proxy server 125 can also compress or transcode the traffic,
reducing the amount of data sent over the network 106 and/or 108.
The signaling traffic in the network 106 and/or 108 can be reduced,
as the networks are now used less often and the network traffic can
be synchronized among individual applications.
[0095] With respect to the battery life of the mobile device 150,
by serving application or content requests from the local cache
185, the local proxy 175 can reduce the number of times the radio
module is powered up. The local proxy 175 and the proxy server 125
can work in conjunction to accumulate low priority data and send it
in batches to reduce the number of times and/or amount of time when
the radio is powered up. The local proxy 175 can synchronize the
network use by performing the batched data transfer for all
connections simultaneously.
[0096] FIG. 1D illustrates an example diagram of the logical
architecture of a distributed proxy and cache system.
[0097] The distributed system can include, for example the
following components:
[0098] Client Side Proxy 175: a component installed in the
Smartphone, mobile device or wireless device 150 that interfaces
with device's operating system, as well as with data services and
applications installed in the device. The client side proxy 175 is
typically compliant with and able to operate with standard or state
of the art networking protocols.
[0099] The server side proxy 125 can include one or more servers
that can interface with third party application servers (e.g.,
199), mobile operator's network (which can be proxy 199 or an
additional server that is not illustrated) and/or the client side
proxy 175, either directly or via an intermediary element, such as
SMSC 114. In general, the server side proxy 125 can be compliant
with and is generally able to operate with standard or state of the
art networking protocols and/or specifications for interacting with
mobile network elements and/or third party servers.
[0100] Reporting and Usage Analytics Server 174: The Reporting and
Usage Analytics system or component 174 can collect information
from the client side 175 and/or the server side 125 and provides
the necessary tools for producing reports and usage analytics can
used for analyzing traffic and signaling data. Such analytics can
be used by the proxy system in managing/reducing network traffic or
by the network operator in monitoring their networks for possible
improvements and enhancements. Note that the reporting and usage
analytics system/component 174 as illustrated, may be a server
separate from the server-side proxy 125, or it may be a component
of the server-side proxy 125, residing partially or wholly
therein.
[0101] Notably, in some embodiments of such systems, the
client-side proxy 175 can include or correspond to the local proxy
105 (FIG. 1A), and the server-side proxy 125 can include or
correspond to the proxy server 113 (FIG. 1A).
[0102] FIG. 1E illustrates an example diagram showing the
architecture of client side components in a distributed proxy and
cache system. In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1E, client side
components include the mobile operating system 162 and mobile
applications 163, collectively referred to as the mobile OS and
apps 165.
[0103] Other client side components include client side proxy 175,
which can include software components or agents installed on the
mobile device that enables traffic optimization and performs the
related functionalities on the client side. Components of the
client side proxy 175 can operate transparently for end users and
applications 163. The client side proxy 175 can be installed on
mobile devices for optimization to take place, and it can
effectuate changes on the data routes. Once data routing is
modified, the client side proxy 175 can respond to application
requests to service providers or host servers, in addition to or
instead of letting those applications 163 access data network
directly. In general, applications 163 on the mobile device do not
notice that the client side proxy 175 is responding to their
requests. Some example components of the client side proxy 175 are
described as follows:
[0104] Device State Monitor 121: The device state monitor 121 can
be responsible for identifying several states and metrics in the
device, such as network status, display status, battery level, etc.
(referred to as radio/battery/display information 161), such that
the remaining components in the client side proxy 175 can operate
and make decisions according to device state, acting in an optimal
way in each state.
[0105] Extended Caching Optimization Engine 177: Similar to what
are mentioned with regard to the optimization engine 107 in FIG.
1A, the optimization engine 177 can perform, either individually or
in conjunction with Extended Caching Optimization Manager 179 (FIG.
1F, discussed below), the signal optimization techniques disclosed
herein. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1E, the optimization engine
177 is coupled to the device state monitor 121 to receive
application activity, battery, network status, display or LCD
status (e.g., backlit status) as well as user selection, an
administrator's selection, and/or other suitable information in
determining, for example, user inactivity, radio availability,
prediction of user activity (e.g., based on historical patterns),
and/or network health state (e.g., congestion). The optimization
engine 177 can also communicate with the server-side proxy 125
(FIG. 1F) for selectively caching one or more operational data
(e.g., requests and/or responses) of applications 163 (e.g.,
applications 102, FIG. 1A) to and from the remote host server 111
in carrying out the extended caching techniques discussed in, for
example, FIG. 1A and FIGS. 4A-5B.
[0106] Traffic Recognizer 122: The traffic recognizer 122 analyzes
all traffic between the wireless device applications 163 and their
respective host servers in order to identify recurrent patterns.
Supported transport protocols include, for example, DNS, HTTP and
HTTPS, such that traffic through those ports is directed to the
client side proxy 175. While analyzing traffic, the client side
proxy 175 can identify recurring polling patterns which can be
candidates to be performed remotely by the server side proxy 125,
and send to the protocol optimizer 123.
[0107] Protocol Optimizer 123: The protocol optimizer 123 can
implement the logic of serving recurrent request from the local
cache 185 instead of allowing those request go over the network to
the service provider/application host server. One is its tasks is
to eliminate or minimize the need to send requests to the network,
positively affecting network congestion and device battery
life.
[0108] Local Cache 185: The local cache 185 can store responses to
recurrent requests, and can be used by the Protocol Optimizer 123
to send responses to the applications 163.
[0109] Traffic Scheduler 124: The traffic scheduler 124 can
temporally move communications to optimize usage of device
resources by unifying keep-alive signaling so that some or all of
the different applications 163 can send keep-alive messages at the
same time (traffic pipelining). Traffic scheduler124 may also
decide to delay transmission of data that is not relevant at a
given time (for example, when the device is not actively used).
[0110] Policy Manager 120: The policy manager 120 can store and
enforce traffic optimization and reporting policies provisioned by
a Policy Management Server (PMS). At the client side proxy 175
first start, traffic optimization and reporting policies (policy
profiles) that is to be enforced in a particular device can be
provisioned by the Policy Management Server.
[0111] Watch Dog 127: The watch dog 127 can monitor the client side
proxy 175 operating availability. In case the client side proxy 175
is not working due to a failure or because it has been disabled,
the watchdog 127 can reset DNS routing rules information and can
restore original DNS settings for the device to continue working
until the client side proxy 175 service is restored.
[0112] Reporting Agent 126: The reporting agent 126 can gather
information about the events taking place in the device and sends
the information to the Reporting Server. Event details are stored
temporarily in the device and transferred to reporting server only
when the data channel state is active. If the client side proxy 175
doesn't send records within twenty-four hours, the reporting agent
126 may attempt to open the connection and send recorded entries
or, in case there are no entries in storage, an empty reporting
packet. All reporting settings are configured in the policy
management server.
[0113] Push Client 128: The push client 128 can be responsible for
the traffic to between the server side proxy 125 and the client
side proxy 175. The push client 128 can send out service requests
like content update requests and policy update requests, and
receives updates to those requests from the server side proxy 125.
In addition, push client 128 can send data to a reporting server
(e.g., the reporting and/or usage analytics system which may be
internal to or external to the server side proxy 125).
[0114] The proxy server 199 has a wide variety of uses, from
speeding up a web server by caching repeated requests, to caching
web, DNS and other network lookups for a group of clients sharing
network resources. The proxy server 199 is optional. The
distributed proxy and cache system (125 and/or 175) allows for a
flexible proxy configuration using either the proxy 199, additional
proxy(s) in operator's network, or integrating both proxies 199 and
an operator's or other third-party's proxy.
[0115] FIG. 1F illustrates a diagram of the example components on
the server side of the distributed proxy and cache system.
[0116] The server side 125 of the distributed system can include,
for example a relay server 142, which interacts with a traffic
harmonizer 144, a polling server 145 and/or a policy management
server 143. Each of the various components can communicate with the
client side proxy 175, or other third party (e.g., application
server/service provider 110 and/or other proxy 199) and/or a
reporting and usage analytics system. Some example components of
the server side proxy 125 is described as follows:
[0117] Relay Server 142: The relay server 142 is the routing agent
in the distributed proxy architecture. The relay server 142 manages
connections and communications with components on the client-side
proxy 175 installed on devices and provides an administrative
interface for reports, provisioning, platform setup, and so on.
[0118] Extended Caching Optimization Manager 179: Similar to what
are mentioned with regard to FIG. 1A, the optimization manager 179
can perform, in conjunction with the optimization engine 177 (FIG.
1E), signal optimization techniques, and more specifically,
extended caching techniques with configurable parameters as
disclosed herein. In some embodiments, such as the one shown in
FIG. 1F, the optimization manager 179 is coupled to the relay
server 142 to receive relevant connection and communication
information for performing the extended caching. Among others, the
optimization manager 179 is also coupled to server cache 135 in
carrying out the extended caching.
[0119] Notification Server 141: The notification server 141 is a
module able to connect to an operator's SMSC gateways and deliver
SMS notifications to the client-side proxy 175. SMS notifications
can be used when an IP link is not currently active, in order to
avoid the client-side proxy 175 from activating a connection over
the wireless data channel, thus avoiding additional signaling
traffic. However, if the IP connection happens to be open for some
other traffic, the notification server 141 can use it for sending
the notifications to the client-side proxy 175. A user database 146
can store operational data including endpoint (MSISDN),
organization and Notification server 141 gateway for each resource
(URIs or URLs).
[0120] Traffic Harmonizer 144: The traffic harmonizer 144 can be
responsible for communication between the client-side proxy 175 and
the polling server 145. The traffic harmonizer 144 connects to the
polling server 145 directly or through the data storage 130, and to
the client over any open or proprietary protocol such as the 7TP,
implemented for traffic optimization. The traffic harmonizer 144
can be also responsible for traffic pipelining on the server side:
if there's cached content in the database for the same client, this
can be sent over to the client in one message.
[0121] Polling Server 145: The polling server 145 can poll third
party application servers on behalf of applications that are being
optimized). If a change occurs (i.e. new data available) for an
application, the polling server 145 can report to the traffic
harmonizer 144 which in turn sends a notification message to the
client-side proxy 175 for it to clear the cache and allow
application to poll application server directly.
[0122] Policy Management Server 143: The policy management server
(PMS) 143 allows administrators to configure and store policies for
the client-side proxies 175 (device clients). It also allows
administrators to notify the client-side proxies 175 about policy
changes. Using the policy management server 143, each operator can
configure the policies to work in the most efficient way for the
unique characteristics of each particular mobile operator's
network. In one embodiment, PMS 143 may include a policy management
server database 147 for storing policies and other information.
[0123] Reporting and Usage Analytics Component: The Reporting and
Usage Analytics component or system collects information from the
client side 175 and/or from the server side 125, and provides the
tools for producing reports and usage analytics that operators can
use for analyzing application signaling and data consumption.
[0124] Most mobile applications regularly poll their application
servers to check for new data. Often there is no new data or the
content has not changed, so the exchange of data through the mobile
network is unnecessary. As the number of mobile phones and their
applications increase, the amount of this needless polling grows.
Since applications are not coordinated and poll at different times
and intervals, any given phone may frequently generate signal
traffic. This causes multiple unnecessary radio activations,
consuming power and shortening battery life.
[0125] In one embodiment, the signaling optimizer reduces network
requests to a minimum by caching content in the client and letting
its own server poll for changes in the network. When a mobile
phone's client side proxy (e.g., local proxy) 175 detects a
recurring pattern for a resource, such as an email application, its
response content is stored locally in a client cache so similar
requests from that application get their response from the local
cache, rather than signaling the network.
[0126] In another embodiment, systems and methods of intelligent
alarm tracker and resource manipulator can be used to reduce
network requests by consolidating or changing the timing of
requests such that use of resources including network, battery,
CPU, memory and the like can be reduced.
[0127] In some embodiments, features of the signaling optimizer and
the intelligent alarm tracker and resource manipulator may be used
together to obtain reduce resource usage by mobile applications on
a mobile device.
[0128] FIG. 1G illustrates an example diagram of a signaling
optimizer of the distributed proxy and cache system.
[0129] As an example, someone who typically gets only 10 emails a
day may have phone's email application poll the network for new
email every 15 minutes, or 96 times a day, with around 90% or more
of the polls resulting in the same response: there are no new
emails. The client side proxy (e.g., local proxy) 175 can recognize
this request--response pattern, and intercepts the application's
poll requests, returning the locally cached response of "no new
emails". This way the device radio is not turned on by this
particular application, and the poll doesn't use any network
resources. The server (e.g., host server 100, proxy server 125),
located in the network, can monitor the email application server on
behalf of the user's email application. When new email is
available, the server can notify the user's client side proxy 175
to not use the cached "no new emails" response for the next poll
request. Instead of going to the local client cache, the email
application polls its application server over the network and
receives the new content.
[0130] The signaling optimizer can be configured and managed using
different rule sets for different device types, user types,
wireless networks, and applications. Optimization rules can be
updated at any time, so the changes can be applied immediately when
an application upgrades or changes happen in the mobile network.
The protocols that can be optimized include, but are not limited
to: HTTP, HTTPS and DNS.
[0131] FIG. 1H illustrates an example diagram of an example
client-server architecture of the distributed proxy and cache
system.
[0132] In the client-server architecture, the client side proxy 175
(e.g., local proxy) is residing on the mobile or client devices.
The client side proxy 175 can communicate both directly to the
Internet (usually via an operator proxy) and to the server side
proxy (e.g., proxy server) 125, or the host server 100. The proxy
server 125 communicates to the Internet and to the operator's SMSC
114.
[0133] As depicted, the client side proxy 175 can send a request
directly to the Internet. This can happen after requests have been
analyzed to detect optimizable patterns, for example. The client
side proxy 175 can, in one implementation, send a request to the
server (e.g., host server 100, proxy server 125), for example, to
initiate server polling, to reports logs or to get new
configuration. The proxy server 125 can send a request to the
Internet to, for example, validate cached content. In one
implementation, the proxy server 125 can send a request to the SMSC
114, for example, to send a cache invalidate message or policy
update message to the client-side proxy 175.
[0134] In one implementation, the client side proxy 175 may not
maintain an open connection with the proxy server 125, but may
connect to the proxy server 125 only in case there's a need to
start polling an origin server 110, to report logs or to get new
configuration. For signaling optimizer feature, the proxy server
125 can notify the client side proxy 175 when the content, that has
been polled, has changed. The proxy server 125 can send a request
to invalidate cache in the client side proxy 125. When the
application connects to that particular origin server (e.g.,
content server 110) the next time, it can first fetch the latest
content from the proxy server 125 and then directly connect to the
origin server 110. For the policy enforcer and/or the network
protector features, the proxy server 125 can notify the client side
proxy 175 when there's new configuration to be fetched from the
server. When the proxy server 125 needs to communicate with the
client side proxy 175, it can use a connection that is already open
for some other request. If the connection is not open, the proxy
server 125 can send a notification (e.g., SMS) to the client side
proxy 175.
[0135] FIG. 1I depicts an example diagram illustrating data flows
between example client side components in a distributed proxy and
cache system. Traffic from applications (e.g., App1, App2, App3 to
AppN), client side proxy (e.g., local proxy) 175, IP Routing Tables
(e.g., in the Android Operating System Layer), Network Access Layer
and Wireless Network are depicted.
[0136] In one implementation, non-optimized application traffic
flow, such as traffic from App1, can completely bypass the client
side proxy 175 components and proceed directly through the
operating system layer (e.g., the Android OS layer) and Network
Access Layer to the wireless network. Traffic that that is not
optimized can include, but is not limited to: rich media, like
video and audio, as well as traffic from networks and applications
that has been configured to bypass optimization and traffic pending
optimization, and the like. In one embodiment, all traffic can be
configured to bypass the client side/server side proxy.
[0137] In another implementation, optimized application traffic,
such as traffic from App2, can be redirected from the application
to the client side proxy 175. By default, this can be traffic on
ports 80 (HTTP) and 53 (DNS), and selected traffic on port 443
(HTTPS), for example. However, traffic to other ports can be
configured to be directed to the client side proxy.
[0138] In yet another implementation, traffic flow can be between
the client side proxy 175 and the origin servers (e.g., content
server 110) via the Internet and/or between the client side proxy
175 and the server side proxy (e.g., proxy server) 125.
[0139] FIG. 2A depicts a block diagram illustrating an example of
client-side components in a distributed proxy and cache system
residing on a mobile device (e.g., wireless device) 250 that
manages traffic in a wireless network (or broadband network) for
resource conservation, content caching, traffic management, and/or
signal optimization including extended caching optimization. The
client-side proxy (or local proxy 275) can further categorize
mobile traffic and/or implement delivery policies based on
application behavior, content priority, user activity, and/or user
expectations.
[0140] The device 250, which can be a portable or mobile device
(e.g., any wireless device), such as a portable phone, generally
includes, for example, a network interface 208 an operating system
204, a context API 206, and mobile applications which may be
proxy-unaware 210 or proxy-aware 220. Note that the device 250 is
specifically illustrated in the example of FIG. 2 as a mobile
device, such is not a limitation and that device 250 may be any
wireless, broadband, portable/mobile or non-portable device able to
receive, transmit signals to satisfy data requests over a network
including wired or wireless networks (e.g., WiFi, cellular,
Bluetooth, LAN, WAN, etc.).
[0141] The network interface 208 can be a networking module that
enables the device 250 to mediate data in a network with an entity
that is external to the host server 250, through any known and/or
convenient communications protocol supported by the host and the
external entity. The network interface 208 can include one or more
of a network adaptor card, a wireless network interface card (e.g.,
SMS interface, WiFi interface, interfaces for various generations
of mobile communication standards including but not limited to 2G,
3G, 3.5G, 4G, LTE, etc.,), Bluetooth, or whether or not the
connection is via a router, an access point, a wireless router, a
switch, a multilayer switch, a protocol converter, a gateway, a
bridge, a bridge router, a hub, a digital media receiver, and/or a
repeater.
[0142] Device 250 can further include, client-side components of
the distributed proxy and cache system which can include, a local
proxy 275 (e.g., a mobile client of a mobile device) and a cache
285. In one embodiment, the local proxy 275 includes a user
activity module 215, a proxy API 225, a request/transaction manager
235, a caching policy manager 245 having an application protocol
module 248, a traffic shaping engine 255, and/or a connection
manager 265. The traffic shaping engine 255 may further include an
alignment module 256 and/or a batching module 257, the connection
manager 265 may further include a radio controller 266. The
request/transaction manager 235 can further include an application
behavior detector 236 and/or a prioritization engine 241, the
application behavior detector 236 may further include a pattern
detector 237 and/or and application profile generator 239.
Additional or less components/modules/engines can be included in
the local proxy 275 and each illustrated component.
[0143] As used herein, a "module," "a manager," a "handler," a
"detector," an "interface," a "controller," a "normalizer," a
"generator," an "invalidator," or an "engine" includes a general
purpose, dedicated or shared processor and, typically, firmware or
software modules that are executed by the processor. Depending upon
implementation-specific or other considerations, the module,
manager, handler, detector, interface, controller, normalizer,
generator, invalidator, or engine can be centralized or its
functionality distributed. The module, manager, handler, detector,
interface, controller, normalizer, generator, invalidator, or
engine can include general or special purpose hardware, firmware,
or software embodied in a computer-readable (storage) medium for
execution by the processor.
[0144] As used herein, a computer-readable medium or
computer-readable storage medium is intended to include all mediums
that are statutory (e.g., in the United States, under 35 U.S.C.
.sctn.101), and to specifically exclude all mediums that are
non-statutory in nature to the extent that the exclusion is
necessary for a claim that includes the computer-readable (storage)
medium to be valid. Known statutory computer-readable mediums
include hardware (e.g., registers, random access memory (RAM),
non-volatile (NV) storage, to name a few), but may or may not be
limited to hardware.
[0145] In one embodiment, a portion of the distributed proxy and
cache system for network traffic management resides in or is in
communication with device 250, including local proxy 275 (mobile
client) and/or cache 285. The local proxy 275 can provide an
interface on the device 250 for users to access device applications
and services including email, IM, voice mail, visual voicemail,
feeds, Internet, games, productivity tools, or other applications,
etc.
[0146] The proxy 275 is generally application independent and can
be used by applications (e.g., both proxy-aware and proxy-unaware
applications 210 and 220 and other mobile applications) to open TCP
connections to a remote server (e.g., the server 100 in the
examples of FIG. 1B-1C and/or server proxy 125/325 shown in the
examples of FIG. 1B and FIG. 3A). In some instances, the local
proxy 275 includes a proxy API 225 which can be optionally used to
interface with proxy-aware applications 220 (or applications (e.g.,
mobile applications) on a mobile device (e.g., any wireless
device)).
[0147] The applications 210 and 220 can generally include any user
application, widgets, software, HTTP-based application, web
browsers, video or other multimedia streaming or downloading
application, video games, social network applications, email
clients, RSS management applications, application stores, document
management applications, productivity enhancement applications,
etc. The applications can be provided with the device OS, by the
device manufacturer, by the network service provider, downloaded by
the user, or provided by others.
[0148] One embodiment of the local proxy 275 includes or is coupled
to a context API 206, as shown. The context API 206 may be a part
of the operating system 204 or device platform or independent of
the operating system 204, as illustrated. The operating system 204
can include any operating system including but not limited to, any
previous, current, and/or future versions/releases of, Windows
Mobile, iOS, Android, Symbian, Palm OS, Brew MP, Java 2 Micro
Edition (J2ME), Blackberry, etc.
[0149] The context API 206 may be a plug-in to the operating system
204 or a particular client/application on the device 250. The
context API 206 can detect signals indicative of user or device
activity, for example, sensing motion, gesture, device location,
changes in device location, device backlight, keystrokes, clicks,
activated touch screen, mouse click or detection of other pointer
devices. The context API 206 can be coupled to input devices or
sensors on the device 250 to identify these signals. Such signals
can generally include input received in response to explicit user
input at an input device/mechanism at the device 250 and/or
collected from ambient signals/contextual cues detected at or in
the vicinity of the device 250 (e.g., light, motion, piezoelectric,
etc.).
[0150] In one embodiment, the user activity module 215 interacts
with the context API 206 to identify, determine, infer, detect,
compute, predict, and/or anticipate, characteristics of user
activity on the device 250. Various inputs collected by the context
API 206 can be aggregated by the user activity module 215 to
generate a profile for characteristics of user activity. Such a
profile can be generated by the user activity module 215 with
various temporal characteristics. For instance, user activity
profile can be generated in real-time for a given instant to
provide a view of what the user is doing or not doing at a given
time (e.g., defined by a time window, in the last minute, in the
last 30 seconds, etc.), a user activity profile can also be
generated for a `session` defined by an application or web page
that describes the characteristics of user behavior with respect to
a specific task they are engaged in on the device 250, or for a
specific time period (e.g., for the last 2 hours, for the last 5
hours).
[0151] Additionally, characteristic profiles can be generated by
the user activity module 215 to depict a historical trend for user
activity and behavior (e.g., 1 week, 1 mo., 2 mo., etc.). Such
historical profiles can also be used to deduce trends of user
behavior, for example, access frequency at different times of day,
trends for certain days of the week (weekends or week days), user
activity trends based on location data (e.g., IP address, GPS, or
cell tower coordinate data) or changes in location data (e.g., user
activity based on user location, or user activity based on whether
the user is on the go, or traveling outside a home region, etc.) to
obtain user activity characteristics.
[0152] In one embodiment, user activity module 215 can detect and
track user activity with respect to applications, documents, files,
windows, icons, and folders on the device 250. For example, the
user activity module 215 can detect when an application or window
(e.g., a web browser or any other type of application) has been
exited, closed, minimized, maximized, opened, moved into the
foreground, or into the background, multimedia content playback,
etc.
[0153] In one embodiment, characteristics of the user activity on
the device 250 can be used to locally adjust behavior of the device
(e.g., mobile device or any wireless device) to optimize its
resource consumption such as battery/power consumption and more
generally, consumption of other device resources including memory,
storage, and processing power. In one embodiment, the use of a
radio on a device can be adjusted based on characteristics of user
behavior (e.g., by the radio controller 266 of the connection
manager 265) coupled to the user activity module 215. For example,
the radio controller 266 can turn the radio on or off, based on
characteristics of the user activity on the device 250. In
addition, the radio controller 266 can adjust the power mode of the
radio (e.g., to be in a higher power mode or lower power mode)
depending on characteristics of user activity.
[0154] In one embodiment, characteristics of the user activity on
device 250 can also be used to cause another device (e.g., other
computers, a mobile device, a wireless device, or a non-portable
device) or server (e.g., host server 100 and 300 in the examples of
FIG. 1B-C and FIG. 3A) which can communicate (e.g., via a cellular
or other network) with the device 250 to modify its communication
frequency with the device 250. The local proxy 275 can use the
characteristics information of user behavior determined by the user
activity module 215 to instruct the remote device as to how to
modulate its communication frequency (e.g., decreasing
communication frequency, such as data push frequency if the user is
idle, requesting that the remote device notify the device 250 if
new data, changed, data, or data of a certain level of importance
becomes available, etc.).
[0155] In one embodiment, the user activity module 215 can, in
response to determining that user activity characteristics indicate
that a user is active after a period of inactivity, request that a
remote device (e.g., server host server 100 and 300 in the examples
of FIG. 1B-C and FIG. 3A) send the data that was buffered as a
result of the previously decreased communication frequency.
[0156] In addition, or in alternative, the local proxy 275 can
communicate the characteristics of user activity at the device 250
to the remote device (e.g., host server 100 and 300 in the examples
of FIG. 1B-C and FIG. 3A) and the remote device determines how to
alter its own communication frequency with the device 250 for
network resource conservation and conservation of device 250
resources.
[0157] One embodiment of the local proxy 275 further includes a
request/transaction manager 235, which can detect, identify,
intercept, process, manage, data requests initiated on the device
250, for example, by applications 210 and/or 220, and/or
directly/indirectly by a user request. The request/transaction
manager 235 can determine how and when to process a given request
or transaction, or a set of requests/transactions, based on
transaction characteristics.
[0158] The request/transaction manager 235 can prioritize requests
or transactions made by applications and/or users at the device
250, for example by the prioritization engine 241. Importance or
priority of requests/transactions can be determined by the
request/transaction manager 235 by applying a rule set, for
example, according to time sensitivity of the transaction, time
sensitivity of the content in the transaction, time criticality of
the transaction, time criticality of the data transmitted in the
transaction, and/or time criticality or importance of an
application making the request.
[0159] In addition, transaction characteristics can also depend on
whether the transaction was a result of user-interaction or other
user-initiated action on the device (e.g., user interaction with a
application (e.g., a mobile application)). In general, a time
critical transaction can include a transaction resulting from a
user-initiated data transfer, and can be prioritized as such.
Transaction characteristics can also depend on the amount of data
that will be transferred or is anticipated to be transferred as a
result of the requested transaction. For example, the connection
manager 265, can adjust the radio mode (e.g., high power or low
power mode via the radio controller 266) based on the amount of
data that will need to be transferred.
[0160] In addition, the radio controller 266/connection manager 265
can adjust the radio power mode (high or low) based on time
criticality/sensitivity of the transaction. The radio controller
266 can trigger the use of high power radio mode when a
time-critical transaction (e.g., a transaction resulting from a
user-initiated data transfer, an application running in the
foreground, any other event meeting a certain criteria) is
initiated or detected.
[0161] In general, the priorities can be set by default, for
example, based on device platform, device manufacturer, operating
system, etc. Priorities can alternatively or in additionally be set
by the particular application; for example, the Facebook
application (e.g., a mobile application) can set its own priorities
for various transactions (e.g., a status update can be of higher
priority than an add friend request or a poke request, a message
send request can be of higher priority than a message delete
request, for example), an email client or IM chat client may have
its own configurations for priority. The prioritization engine 241
may include set of rules for assigning priority.
[0162] The prioritization engine 241 can also track network
provider limitations or specifications on application or
transaction priority in determining an overall priority status for
a request/transaction. Furthermore, priority can in part or in
whole be determined by user preferences, either explicit or
implicit. A user, can in general, set priorities at different
tiers, such as, specific priorities for sessions, or types, or
applications (e.g., a browsing session, a gaming session, versus an
IM chat session, the user may set a gaming session to always have
higher priority than an IM chat session, which may have higher
priority than web-browsing session). A user can set
application-specific priorities, (e.g., a user may set
Facebook-related transactions to have a higher priority than
LinkedIn-related transactions), for specific transaction types
(e.g., for all send message requests across all applications to
have higher priority than message delete requests, for all
calendar-related events to have a high priority, etc.), and/or for
specific folders.
[0163] The prioritization engine 241 can track and resolve
conflicts in priorities set by different entities. For example,
manual settings specified by the user may take precedence over
device OS settings, network provider parameters/limitations (e.g.,
set in default for a network service area, geographic locale, set
for a specific time of day, or set based on service/fee type) may
limit any user-specified settings and/or application-set
priorities. In some instances, a manual synchronization request
received from a user can override some, most, or all priority
settings in that the requested synchronization is performed when
requested, regardless of the individually assigned priority or an
overall priority ranking for the requested action.
[0164] Priority can be specified and tracked internally in any
known and/or convenient manner, including but not limited to, a
binary representation, a multi-valued representation, a graded
representation and all are considered to be within the scope of the
disclosed technology.
TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Change Change (initiated on device) Priority
(initiated on server) Priority Send email High Receive email High
Delete email Low Edit email Often not (Un)read email Low possible
to sync (Low if possible) Move message Low New email in deleted Low
Read more High items Download High Delete an email Low attachment
(Un)Read an email Low New Calendar event High Move messages Low
Edit/change Calendar High Any calendar change High event Any
contact change High Add a contact High Wipe/lock device High Edit a
contact High Settings change High Search contacts High Any folder
change High Change a setting High Connector restart High (if Manual
send/receive High no changes nothing is sent) IM status change
Medium Social Network Medium Status Updates Auction outbid or High
Severe Weather High change notification Alerts Weather Updates Low
News Updates Low
[0165] Table I above shows, for illustration purposes, some
examples of transactions with examples of assigned priorities in a
binary representation scheme. Additional assignments are possible
for additional types of events, requests, transactions, and as
previously described, priority assignments can be made at more or
less granular levels, e.g., at the session level or at the
application level, etc.
[0166] As shown by way of example in the above table, in general,
lower priority requests/transactions can include, updating message
status as being read, unread, deleting of messages, deletion of
contacts; higher priority requests/transactions, can in some
instances include, status updates, new IM chat message, new email,
calendar event update/cancellation/deletion, an event in a mobile
gaming session, or other entertainment related events, a purchase
confirmation through a web purchase or online, request to load
additional or download content, contact book related events, a
transaction to change a device setting, location-aware or
location-based events/transactions, or any other
events/request/transactions initiated by a user or where the user
is known to be, expected to be, or suspected to be waiting for a
response, etc.
[0167] Inbox pruning events (e.g., email, or any other types of
messages), are generally considered low priority and absent other
impending events, generally will not trigger use of the radio on
the device 250. Specifically, pruning events to remove old email or
other content can be `piggy backed` with other communications if
the radio is not otherwise on, at the time of a scheduled pruning
event. For example, if the user has preferences set to `keep
messages for 7 days old,` then instead of powering on the device
radio to initiate a message delete from the device 250 the moment
that the message has exceeded 7 days old, the message is deleted
when the radio is powered on next. If the radio is already on, then
pruning may occur as regularly scheduled.
[0168] The request/transaction manager 235, can use the priorities
for requests (e.g., by the prioritization engine 241) to manage
outgoing traffic from the device 250 for resource optimization
(e.g., to utilize the device radio more efficiently for battery
conservation). For example, transactions/requests below a certain
priority ranking may not trigger use of the radio on the device 250
if the radio is not already switched on, as controlled by the
connection manager 265. In contrast, the radio controller 266 can
turn on the radio such a request can be sent when a request for a
transaction is detected to be over a certain priority level.
[0169] In one embodiment, priority assignments (such as that
determined by the local proxy 275 or another device/entity) can be
used cause a remote device to modify its communication with the
frequency with the mobile device or wireless device. For example,
the remote device can be configured to send notifications to the
device 250 when data of higher importance is available to be sent
to the mobile device or wireless device.
[0170] In one embodiment, transaction priority can be used in
conjunction with characteristics of user activity in shaping or
managing traffic, for example, by the traffic shaping engine 255.
For example, the traffic shaping engine 255 can, in response to
detecting that a user is dormant or inactive, wait to send low
priority transactions from the device 250, for a period of time. In
addition, the traffic shaping engine 255 can allow multiple low
priority transactions to accumulate for batch transferring from the
device 250 (e.g., via the batching module 257). In one embodiment,
the priorities can be set, configured, or readjusted by a user. For
example, content depicted in Table I in the same or similar form
can be accessible in a user interface on the device 250 and for
example, used by the user to adjust or view the priorities.
[0171] The batching module 257 can initiate batch transfer based on
certain criteria. For example, batch transfer (e.g., of multiple
occurrences of events, some of which occurred at different
instances in time) may occur after a certain number of low priority
events have been detected, or after an amount of time elapsed after
the first of the low priority event was initiated. In addition, the
batching module 257 can initiate batch transfer of the cumulated
low priority events when a higher priority event is initiated or
detected at the device 250. Batch transfer can otherwise be
initiated when radio use is triggered for another reason (e.g., to
receive data from a remote device such as host server 100 or 300).
In one embodiment, an impending pruning event (pruning of an
inbox), or any other low priority events, can be executed when a
batch transfer occurs.
[0172] In general, the batching capability can be disabled or
enabled at the event/transaction level, application level, or
session level, based on any one or combination of the following:
user configuration, device limitations/settings, manufacturer
specification, network provider parameters/limitations,
platform-specific limitations/settings, device OS settings, etc. In
one embodiment, batch transfer can be initiated when an
application/window/file is closed out, exited, or moved into the
background; users can optionally be prompted before initiating a
batch transfer; users can also manually trigger batch
transfers.
[0173] In one embodiment, the local proxy 275 locally adjusts radio
use on the device 250 by caching data in the cache 285. When
requests or transactions from the device 250 can be satisfied by
content stored in the cache 285, the radio controller 266 need not
activate the radio to send the request to a remote entity (e.g.,
the host server 100, 300, as shown in FIG. 1B and FIG. 3A or a
content provider/application server such as the server/provider 110
shown in the examples of FIG. 1B and FIG. 1C). As such, the local
proxy 275 can use the local cache 285 and the cache policy manager
245 to locally store data for satisfying data requests to eliminate
or reduce the use of the device radio for conservation of network
resources and device battery consumption.
[0174] In leveraging the local cache, once the request/transaction
manager 225 intercepts a data request by an application on the
device 250, the local repository 285 can be queried to determine if
there is any locally stored response, and also determine whether
the response is valid. When a valid response is available in the
local cache 285, the response can be provided to the application on
the device 250 without the device 250 needing to access the
cellular network or wireless broadband network.
[0175] If a valid response is not available, the local proxy 275
can query a remote proxy (e.g., the server proxy 325 of FIG. 3A) to
determine whether a remotely stored response is valid. If so, the
remotely stored response (e.g., which may be stored on the server
cache 135 or optional caching server 199 shown in the example of
FIG. 1C) can be provided to the mobile device, possibly without the
mobile device 250 needing to access the cellular network, thus
relieving consumption of network resources.
[0176] If a valid cache response is not available, or if cache
responses are unavailable for the intercepted data request, the
local proxy 275, for example, the caching policy manager 245, can
send the data request to a remote proxy (e.g., server proxy 325 of
FIG. 3A) which forwards the data request to a content source (e.g.,
application server/content provider 110 of FIG. 1B) and a response
from the content source can be provided through the remote proxy,
as will be further described in the description associated with the
example host server 300 of FIG. 3A. The cache policy manager 245
can manage or process requests that use a variety of protocols,
including but not limited to HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, POP, SMTP, XMPP,
and/or ActiveSync. The caching policy manager 245 can locally store
responses for data requests in the local database 285 as cache
entries, for subsequent use in satisfying same or similar data
requests.
[0177] The caching policy manager 245 can request that the remote
proxy monitor responses for the data request and the remote proxy
can notify the device 250 when an unexpected response to the data
request is detected. In such an event, the cache policy manager 245
can erase or replace the locally stored response(s) on the device
250 when notified of the unexpected response (e.g., new data,
changed data, additional data, etc.) to the data request. In one
embodiment, the caching policy manager 245 is able to detect or
identify the protocol used for a specific request, including but
not limited to HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, POP, SMTP, XMPP, and/or
ActiveSync. In one embodiment, application specific handlers (e.g.,
via the application protocol module 246 of the caching policy
manager 245) on the local proxy 275 allows for optimization of any
protocol that can be port mapped to a handler in the distributed
proxy (e.g., port mapped on the proxy server 325 in the example of
FIG. 3A).
[0178] In one embodiment, the local proxy 275 notifies the remote
proxy such that the remote proxy can monitor responses received for
the data request from the content source for changed results prior
to returning the result to the device 250, for example, when the
data request to the content source has yielded same results to be
returned to the mobile device. In general, the local proxy 275 can
simulate application server responses for applications on the
device 250, using locally cached content. This can prevent
utilization of the cellular network for transactions where
new/changed data is not available, thus freeing up network
resources and preventing network congestion.
[0179] In one embodiment, the local proxy 275 includes an
application behavior detector 236 to track, detect, observe,
monitor, applications (e.g., proxy-aware and/or unaware
applications 210 and 220) accessed or installed on the device 250.
Application behaviors, or patterns in detected behaviors (e.g., via
the pattern detector 237) of one or more applications accessed on
the device 250 can be used by the local proxy 275 to optimize
traffic in a wireless network needed to satisfy the data needs of
these applications.
[0180] For example, based on detected behavior of multiple
applications, the traffic shaping engine 255 can align content
requests made by at least some of the applications over the network
(wireless network) (e.g., via the alignment module 256). The
alignment module 256 can delay or expedite some earlier received
requests to achieve alignment. When requests are aligned, the
traffic shaping engine 255 can utilize the connection manager to
poll over the network to satisfy application data requests. Content
requests for multiple applications can be aligned based on behavior
patterns or rules/settings including, for example, content types
requested by the multiple applications (audio, video, text, etc.),
device (e.g., mobile or wireless device) parameters, and/or network
parameters/traffic conditions, network service provider
constraints/specifications, etc.
[0181] In one embodiment, the pattern detector 237 can detect
recurrences in application requests made by the multiple
applications, for example, by tracking patterns in application
behavior. A tracked pattern can include, detecting that certain
applications, as a background process, poll an application server
regularly, at certain times of day, on certain days of the week,
periodically in a predictable fashion, with a certain frequency,
with a certain frequency in response to a certain type of event, in
response to a certain type user query, frequency that requested
content is the same, frequency with which a same request is made,
interval between requests, applications making a request, or any
combination of the above, for example.
[0182] Such recurrences can be used by traffic shaping engine 255
to offload polling of content from a content source (e.g., from an
application server/content provider 110 of FIG. 1A) that would
result from the application requests that would be performed at the
mobile device or wireless device 250 to be performed instead, by a
proxy server (e.g., proxy server 125 of FIG. 1C or proxy server 325
of FIG. 3A) remote from the device 250. Traffic shaping engine 255
can decide to offload the polling when the recurrences match a
rule. For example, there are multiple occurrences or requests for
the same resource that have exactly the same content, or returned
value, or based on detection of repeatable time periods between
requests and responses such as a resource that is requested at
specific times during the day. The offloading of the polling can
decrease the amount of bandwidth consumption needed by the mobile
device 250 to establish a wireless (cellular or other wireless
broadband) connection with the content source for repetitive
content polls.
[0183] As a result of the offloading of the polling, locally cached
content stored in the local cache 285 can be provided to satisfy
data requests at the device 250, when content change is not
detected in the polling of the content sources. As such, when data
has not changed, application data needs can be satisfied without
needing to enable radio use or occupying cellular bandwidth in a
wireless network. When data has changed and/or new data has been
received, the remote entity to which polling is offloaded, can
notify the device 250. The remote entity may be the host server 300
as shown in the example of FIG. 3A.
[0184] In one embodiment, the local proxy 275 can mitigate the
need/use of periodic keep-alive messages (heartbeat messages) to
maintain TCP/IP connections, which can consume significant amounts
of power thus having detrimental impacts on mobile device battery
life. The connection manager 265 in the local proxy (e.g., the
heartbeat manager 267) can detect, identify, and intercept any or
all heartbeat (keep-alive) messages being sent from
applications.
[0185] The heartbeat manager 267 can prevent any or all of these
heartbeat messages from being sent over the cellular, or other
network, and instead rely on the server component of the
distributed proxy system (e.g., shown in FIG. 1C) to generate and
send the heartbeat messages to maintain a connection with the
backend (e.g., application server/provider 110 in the example of
FIG. 1A).
[0186] The local proxy 275 generally represents any one or a
portion of the functions described for the individual managers,
modules, and/or engines. The local proxy 275 and device 250 can
include additional or less components; more or less functions can
be included, in whole or in part, without deviating from the novel
art of the disclosure.
[0187] FIG. 2B depicts a block diagram illustrating a further
example of components in the cache system shown in the example of
FIG. 2A which is capable of caching and adapting caching strategies
for mobile application behavior and/or network conditions.
[0188] In one embodiment, the caching policy manager 245 includes a
metadata generator 203, a cache look-up engine 205, a cache
appropriateness decision engine 246, a poll schedule generator 247,
an application protocol module 248, a cache or connect selection
engine 249 and/or a local cache invalidator 244. The cache
appropriateness decision engine 246 can further include a timing
predictor 246a,a content predictor 246b, a request analyzer 246c,
and/or a response analyzer 246d, and the cache or connect selection
engine 249 includes a response scheduler 249a. The metadata
generator 203 and/or the cache look-up engine 205 are coupled to
the cache 285 (or local cache) for modification or addition to
cache entries or querying thereof.
[0189] The cache look-up engine 205 may further include an ID or
URI filter 205a, the local cache invalidator 244 may further
include a TTL manager 244a, and the poll schedule generator 247 may
further include a schedule update engine 247a and/or a time
adjustment engine 247b. One embodiment of caching policy manager
245 includes an application cache policy repository 243. In one
embodiment, the application behavior detector 236 includes a
pattern detector 237, a poll interval detector 238, an application
profile generator 239, and/or a priority engine 241. The poll
interval detector 238 may further include a long poll detector 238a
having a response/request tracking engine 238b. The poll interval
detector 238 may further include a long poll hunting detector 238c.
The application profile generator 239 can further include a
response delay interval tracker 239a.
[0190] The pattern detector 237, application profile generator 239,
and the priority engine 241 were also described in association with
the description of the pattern detector shown in the example of
FIG. 2A. One embodiment further includes an application profile
repository 242 which can be used by the local proxy 275 to store
information or metadata regarding application profiles (e.g.,
behavior, patterns, type of HTTP requests, etc.)
[0191] The cache appropriateness decision engine 246 can detect,
assess, or determine whether content from a content source (e.g.,
application server/content provider 110 in the example of FIG. 1B)
with which a mobile device 250 interacts and has content that may
be suitable for caching. For example, the decision engine 246 can
use information about a request and/or a response received for the
request initiated at the mobile device 250 to determine
cacheability, potential cacheability, or non-cacheability. In some
instances, the decision engine 246 can initially verify whether a
request is directed to a blacklisted destination or whether the
request itself originates from a blacklisted client or application.
If so, additional processing and analysis may not be performed by
the decision engine 246 and the request may be allowed to be sent
over the air to the server to satisfy the request. The black listed
destinations or applications/clients (e.g., mobile applications)
can be maintained locally in the local proxy (e.g., in the
application profile repository 242) or remotely (e.g., in the proxy
server 325 or another entity).
[0192] In one embodiment, the decision engine 246, for example, via
the request analyzer 246c, collects information about an
application or client request generated at the mobile device 250.
The request information can include request characteristics
information including, for example, request method. For example,
the request method can indicate the type of HTTP request generated
by the mobile application or client. In one embodiment, response to
a request can be identified as cacheable or potentially cacheable
if the request method is a GET request or POST request. Other types
of requests (e.g., OPTIONS, HEAD, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, or CONNECT)
may or may not be cached. In general, HTTP requests with
uncacheable request methods will not be cached.
[0193] Request characteristics information can further include
information regarding request size, for example. Responses to
requests (e.g., HTTP requests) with body size exceeding a certain
size will not be cached. For example, cacheability can be
determined if the information about the request indicates that a
request body size of the request does not exceed a certain size. In
some instances, the maximum cacheable request body size can be set
to 8092 bytes. In other instances, different values may be used,
dependent on network capacity or network operator specific
settings, for example.
[0194] In some instances, content from a given application
server/content provider (e.g., the server/content provider 110 of
FIG. 1C) is determined to be suitable for caching based on a set of
criteria, for example, criteria specifying time criticality of the
content that is being requested from the content source. In one
embodiment, the local proxy (e.g., the local proxy 175 or 275 of
FIG. 1C and FIG. 2A) applies a selection criteria to store the
content from the host server which is requested by an application
as cached elements in a local cache on the mobile device to satisfy
subsequent requests made by the application.
[0195] The cache appropriateness decision engine 246, further based
on detected patterns of requests sent from the mobile device 250
(e.g., by a mobile application or other types of clients on the
device 250) and/or patterns of received responses, can detect
predictability in requests and/or responses. For example, the
request characteristics information collected by the decision
engine 246, (e.g., the request analyzer 246c) can further include
periodicity information between a request and other requests
generated by a same client on the mobile device or other requests
directed to the same host (e.g., with similar or same identifier
parameters).
[0196] Periodicity can be detected, by the decision engine 246 or
the request analyzer 246c, when the request and the other requests
generated by the same client occur at a fixed rate or nearly fixed
rate, or at a dynamic rate with some identifiable or partially or
wholly reproducible changing pattern. If the requests are made with
some identifiable pattern (e.g., regular intervals, intervals
having a detectable pattern, or trend (e.g., increasing,
decreasing, constant, etc.) the timing predictor 246a can determine
that the requests made by a given application on a device is
predictable and identify it to be potentially appropriate for
caching, at least from a timing standpoint.
[0197] An identifiable pattern or trend can generally include any
application or client behavior which may be simulated either
locally, for example, on the local proxy 275 on the mobile device
250 or simulated remotely, for example, by the proxy server 325 on
the host 300, or a combination of local and remote simulation to
emulate application behavior.
[0198] In one embodiment, the decision engine 246, for example, via
the response analyzer 246d, can collect information about a
response to an application or client request generated at the
mobile device 250. The response is typically received from a server
or the host of the application (e.g., mobile application) or client
which sent the request at the mobile device 250. In some instances,
the mobile client or application can be the mobile version of an
application (e.g., social networking, search, travel management,
voicemail, contact manager, email) or a web site accessed via a web
browser or via a desktop client.
[0199] For example, response characteristics information can
include an indication of whether transfer encoding or chunked
transfer encoding is used in sending the response. In some
instances, responses to HTTP requests with transfer encoding or
chunked transfer encoding are not cached, and therefore are also
removed from further analysis. The rationale here is that chunked
responses are usually large and non-optimal for caching, since the
processing of these transactions may likely slow down the overall
performance. Therefore, in one embodiment, cacheability or
potential for cacheability can be determined when transfer encoding
is not used in sending the response.
[0200] In addition, the response characteristics information can
include an associated status code of the response which can be
identified by the response analyzer 246d. In some instances, HTTP
responses with uncacheable status codes are typically not cached.
The response analyzer 246d can extract the status code from the
response and determine whether it matches a status code which is
cacheable or uncacheable. Some cacheable status codes include by
way of example: 200--OK, 301--Redirect, 302--Found, 303--See other,
304--Not Modified, 307 Temporary Redirect, or 500--Internal server
error. Some uncacheable status codes can include, for example,
403--Forbidden or 404--Not found.
[0201] In one embodiment, cacheability or potential for
cacheability can be determined if the information about the
response does not indicate an uncacheable status code or indicates
a cacheable status code. If the response analyzer 246d detects an
uncacheable status code associated with a given response, the
specific transaction (request/response pair) may be eliminated from
further processing and determined to be uncacheable on a temporary
basis, a semi-permanent, or a permanent basis. If the status code
indicates cacheability, the transaction (e.g., request and/or
response pair) may be subject to further processing and analysis to
confirm cacheability.
[0202] Response characteristics information can also include
response size information. In general, responses can be cached
locally at the mobile device 250 if the responses do not exceed a
certain size. In some instances, the default maximum cached
response size is set to 115 KB. In other instances, the max
cacheable response size may be different and/or dynamically
adjusted based on operating conditions, network conditions, network
capacity, user preferences, network operator requirements, or other
application-specific, user specific, and/or device-specific
reasons. In one embodiment, the response analyzer 246d can identify
the size of the response, and cacheability or potential for
cacheability can be determined if a given threshold or max value is
not exceeded by the response size.
[0203] Furthermore, response characteristics information can
include response body information for the response to the request
and other response to other requests generated by a same client on
the mobile device, or directed to a same content host or
application server. The response body information for the response
and the other responses can be compared, for example, by the
response analyzer 246d, to prevent the caching of dynamic content
(or responses with content that changes frequently and cannot be
efficiently served with cache entries, such as financial data,
stock quotes, news feeds, real-time sporting event activities,
etc.), such as content that would no longer be relevant or
up-to-date if served from cached entries.
[0204] The cache appropriateness decision engine 246 (e.g., the
content predictor 246b) can definitively identify repeatability or
identify indications of repeatability, potential repeatability, or
predictability in responses received from a content source (e.g.,
the content host/application server 110 shown in the example of
FIG. 1C). Repeatability can be detected by, for example, tracking
at least two responses received from the content source and
determines if the two responses are the same. For example,
cacheability can be determined, by the response analyzer 246d, if
the response body information for the response and the other
responses sent by the same mobile client or directed to the same
host/server are same or substantially the same. The two responses
may or may not be responses sent in response to consecutive
requests. In one embodiment, hash values of the responses received
for requests from a given application are used to determine
repeatability of content (with or without heuristics) for the
application in general and/or for the specific request. Additional
same responses may be required for some applications or under
certain circumstances.
[0205] Repeatability in received content need not be 100%
ascertained. For example, responses can be determined to be
repeatable if a certain number or a certain percentage of responses
are the same, or similar. The certain number or certain percentage
of same/similar responses can be tracked over a select period of
time, set by default or set based on the application generating the
requests (e.g., whether the application is highly dynamic with
constant updates or less dynamic with infrequent updates). Any
indicated predictability or repeatability, or possible
repeatability, can be utilized by the distributed system in caching
content to be provided to a requesting application or client on the
mobile device 250.
[0206] In one embodiment, for a long poll type request, the local
proxy 175 can begin to cache responses on a third request when the
response delay times for the first two responses are the same,
substantially the same, or detected to be increasing in intervals.
In general, the received responses for the first two responses
should be the same, and upon verifying that the third response
received for the third request is the same (e.g., if R0=R1=R2), the
third response can be locally cached on the mobile device. Less or
more same responses may be required to begin caching, depending on
the type of application, type of data, type of content, user
preferences, or carrier/network operator specifications.
[0207] Increasing response delays with same responses for long
polls can indicate a hunting period (e.g., a period in which the
application/client on the mobile device is seeking the longest time
between a request and response that a given network will allow), as
detected by the long poll hunting detector 238c of the application
behavior detector 236.
[0208] An example can be described below using T0, T1, T2, where T
indicates the delay time between when a request is sent and when a
response (e.g., the response header) is detected/received for
consecutive requests: [0209] T0=Response0(t)-Request0(t)=180 s.
(+/-tolerance) [0210] T1=Response1(t)-Request1(t)=240 s.
(+/-tolerance) [0211] T2=Response2(t)-Request2(t)=500 s.
(+/-tolerance)
[0212] In the example timing sequence shown above, T0<T1<T2,
this may indicate a hunting pattern for a long poll when network
timeout has not yet been reached or exceeded. Furthermore, if the
responses R0, R1, and R2 received for the three requests are the
same, R2 can be cached. In this example, R2 is cached during the
long poll hunting period without waiting for the long poll to
settle, thus expediting response caching (e.g., this is optional
accelerated caching behavior which can be implemented for all or
select applications).
[0213] As such, the local proxy 275 can specify information that
can be extracted from the timing sequence shown above (e.g.,
polling schedule, polling interval, polling type) to the proxy
server and begin caching and to request the proxy server to begin
polling and monitoring the source (e.g., using any of T0, T1, T2 as
polling intervals but typically T2, or the largest detected
interval without timing out, and for which responses from the
source is received will be sent to the proxy server 325 of FIG. 3A
for use in polling the content source (e.g., application
server/service provider 310)).
[0214] However, if the time intervals are detected to be getting
shorter, the application (e.g., mobile application)/client may
still be hunting for a time interval for which a response can be
reliably received from the content source (e.g., application/server
server/provider 110 or 310), and as such caching typically should
not begin until the request/response intervals indicate the same
time interval or an increasing time interval, for example, for a
long poll type request.
[0215] An example of handling a detected decreasing delay can be
described below using T0, T1, T2, T3, and T4 where T indicates the
delay time between when a request is sent and when a response
(e.g., the response header) is detected/received for consecutive
requests: [0216] T0=Response0(t)-Request0(t)=160 s. (+/-tolerance)
[0217] T1=Response1(t)-Request1(t)=240 s. (+/-tolerance) [0218]
T2=Response2(t)-Request2(t)=500 s. (+/-tolerance) [0219] T3=Time
out at 700 s. (+/-tolerance) [0220] T4=Response4(t)-Request4(t)=600
(+/-tolerance)
[0221] If a pattern for response delays T1<T2<T3>T4 is
detected, as shown in the above timing sequence (e.g., detected by
the long poll hunting detector 238c of the application behavior
detector 236), it can be determined that T3 likely exceeded the
network time out during a long poll hunting period. In Request 3, a
response likely was not received since the connection was
terminated by the network, application, server, or other reason
before a response was sent or available. On Request 4 (after T4),
if a response (e.g., Response 4) is detected or received, the local
proxy 275 can then use the response for caching (if the content
repeatability condition is met). The local proxy can also use T4 as
the poll interval in the polling schedule set for the proxy server
to monitor/poll the content source.
[0222] Note that the above description shows that caching can begin
while long polls are in hunting mode in the event of detecting
increasing response delays, as long as responses are received and
not timed out for a given request. This can be referred to as the
optional accelerated caching during long poll hunting. Caching can
also begin after the hunting mode (e.g., after the poll requests
have settled to a constant or near constant delay value) has
completed. Note that hunting may or may not occur for long polls
and when hunting occurs; the proxy 275 can generally detect this
and determine whether to begin to cache during the hunting period
(increasing intervals with same responses) or wait until the hunt
settles to a stable value.
[0223] In one embodiment, the timing predictor 246a of the cache
appropriateness decision engine 246 can track timing of responses
received from outgoing requests from an application (e.g., mobile
application) or client to detect any identifiable patterns which
can be partially wholly reproducible, such that locally cached
responses can be provided to the requesting client on the mobile
device 250 in a manner that simulates content source (e.g.,
application server/content provider 110 or 310) behavior. For
example, the manner in which (e.g., from a timing standpoint)
responses or content would be delivered to the requesting
application/client on the device 250. This ensures preservation of
user experience when responses to application or mobile client
requests are served from a local and/or remote cache instead of
being retrieved/received directly from the content source (e.g.,
application, content provider 110 or 310).
[0224] In one embodiment, the decision engine 246 or the timing
predictor 246a determines the timing characteristics a given
application (e.g., mobile application) or client from, for example,
the request/response tracking engine 238b and/or the application
profile generator 239 (e.g., the response delay interval tracker
239a). Using the timing characteristics, the timing predictor 246a
determines whether the content received in response to the requests
are suitable or are potentially suitable for caching. For example,
poll request intervals between two consecutive requests from a
given application can be used to determine whether request
intervals are repeatable (e.g., constant, near constant, increasing
with a pattern, decreasing with a pattern, etc.) and can be
predicted and thus reproduced at least some of the times either
exactly or approximated within a tolerance level.
[0225] In some instances, the timing characteristics of a given
request type for a specific application, for multiple requests of
an application, or for multiple applications can be stored in the
application profile repository 242. The application profile
repository 242 can generally store any type of information or
metadata regarding application request/response characteristics
including timing patterns, timing repeatability, content
repeatability, etc.
[0226] The application profile repository 242 can also store
metadata indicating the type of request used by a given application
(e.g., long polls, long-held HTTP requests, HTTP streaming, push,
COMET push, etc.) Application profiles indicating request type by
applications can be used when subsequent same/similar requests are
detected, or when requests are detected from an application which
has already been categorized. In this manner, timing
characteristics for the given request type or for requests of a
specific application which has been tracked and/or analyzed, need
not be reanalyzed.
[0227] Application profiles can be associated with a time-to-live
(e.g., or a default expiration time). The use of an expiration time
for application profiles, or for various aspects of an application
or request's profile can be used on a case by case basis. The
time-to-live or actual expiration time of application profile
entries can be set to a default value or determined individually,
or a combination thereof. Application profiles can also be specific
to wireless networks, physical networks, network operators, or
specific carriers.
[0228] One embodiment includes an application blacklist manager
201. The application blacklist manager 201 can be coupled to the
application cache policy repository 243 and can be partially or
wholly internal to local proxy or the caching policy manager 245.
Similarly, the blacklist manager 201 can be partially or wholly
internal to local proxy or the application behavior detector 236.
The blacklist manager 201 can aggregate, track, update, manage,
adjust, or dynamically monitor a list of destinations of
servers/host that are `blacklisted,` or identified as not cached,
on a permanent or temporary basis. The blacklist of destinations,
when identified in a request, can potentially be used to allow the
request to be sent over the (cellular) network for servicing.
Additional processing on the request may not be performed since it
is detected to be directed to a blacklisted destination.
[0229] Blacklisted destinations can be identified in the
application cache policy repository 243 by address identifiers
including specific URIs or patterns of identifiers including URI
patterns. In general, blacklisted destinations can be set by or
modified for any reason by any party including the user (owner/user
of mobile device 250), operating system/mobile platform of device
250, the destination itself, network operator (of cellular
network), Internet service provider, other third parties, or
according to a list of destinations for applications known to be
uncacheable/not suited for caching. Some entries in the blacklisted
destinations may include destinations aggregated based on the
analysis or processing performed by the local proxy (e.g., cache
appropriateness decision engine 246).
[0230] For example, applications or mobile clients on the mobile
device for which responses have been identified as non-suitable for
caching can be added to the blacklist Their corresponding
hosts/servers may be added in addition to or in lieu of an
identification of the requesting application/client on the mobile
device 250. Some or all of such clients identified by the proxy
system can be added to the blacklist. For example, for all
application clients or applications that are temporarily identified
as not being suitable for caching, only those with certain detected
characteristics (based on timing, periodicity, frequency of
response content change, content predictability, size, etc.) can be
blacklisted.
[0231] The blacklisted entries may include a list of requesting
applications or requesting clients on the mobile device (rather
than destinations) such that, when a request is detected from a
given application or given client, it may be sent through the
network for a response, since responses for blacklisted
clients/applications are in most circumstances not cached.
[0232] A given application profile may also be treated or processed
differently (e.g., different behavior of the local proxy 275 and
the remote proxy 325) depending on the mobile account associated
with a mobile device from which the application is being accessed.
For example, a higher paying account, or a premier account may
allow more frequent access of the wireless network or higher
bandwidth allowance thus affecting the caching policies implemented
between the local proxy 275 and proxy server 325 with an emphasis
on better performance compared to conservation of resources. A
given application profile may also be treated or processed
differently under different wireless network conditions (e.g.,
based on congestion or network outage, etc.).
[0233] Note that cache appropriateness can be determined, tracked,
and managed for multiple clients or applications on the mobile
device 250. Cache appropriateness can also be determined for
different requests or request types initiated by a given client or
application on the mobile device 250. The caching policy manager
245, along with the timing predictor 246a and/or the content
predictor 246b which heuristically determines or estimates
predictability or potential predictability, can track, manage and
store cacheability information for various application or various
requests for a given application. Cacheability information may also
include conditions (e.g., an application can be cached at certain
times of the day, or certain days of the week, or certain requests
of a given application can be cached, or all requests with a given
destination address can be cached) under which caching is
appropriate which can be determined and/or tracked by the cache
appropriateness decision engine 246 and stored and/or updated when
appropriate in the application cache policy repository 243 coupled
to the cache appropriateness decision engine 246.
[0234] The information in the application cache policy repository
243 regarding cacheability of requests, applications, and/or
associated conditions can be used later on when same requests are
detected. In this manner, the decision engine 246 and/or the timing
and content predictors 246a/b need not track and reanalyze
request/response timing and content characteristics to make an
assessment regarding cacheability. In addition, the cacheability
information can in some instances be shared with local proxies of
other mobile devices by way of direct communication or via the host
server (e.g., proxy server 325 of host server 300).
[0235] For example, cacheability information detected by the local
proxy 275 on various mobile devices can be sent to a remote host
server or a proxy server 325 on the host server (e.g., host server
300 or proxy server 325 shown in the example of FIG. 3A, host 100
and proxy server 125 in the example of FIG. 1B-C). The remote host
or proxy server can then distribute the information regarding
application-specific, request-specific cacheability information
and/or any associated conditions to various mobile devices or their
local proxies in a wireless network or across multiple wireless
networks (same service provider or multiple wireless service
providers) for their use.
[0236] In general, the selection criteria for caching can further
include, by way of example but not limitation, the state of the
mobile device indicating whether the mobile device is active or
inactive, network conditions, and/or radio coverage statistics. The
cache appropriateness decision engine 246 can in any one or any
combination of the criteria, and in any order, identifying sources
for which caching may be suitable.
[0237] Once application servers/content providers having identified
or detected content that is potentially suitable for local caching
on the mobile device 250, the cache policy manager 245 can proceed
to cache the associated content received from the identified
sources by storing content received from the content source as
cache elements in a local cache (e.g., local cache 185 or 285 shown
in the examples of FIG. 1B1C and FIG. 2A, respectively) on the
mobile device 250.
[0238] The response can be stored in the cache 285 (e.g., also
referred as the local cache) as a cache entry. In addition to the
response to a request, the cached entry can include response
metadata having additional information regarding caching of the
response. The metadata may be generated by the metadata generator
203 and can include, for example, timing data such as the access
time of the cache entry or creation time of the cache entry.
Metadata can include additional information, such as any
information suited for use in determining whether the response
stored as the cached entry is used to satisfy the subsequent
response. For example, metadata information can further include,
request timing history (e.g., including request time, request start
time, request end time), hash of the request and/or response, time
intervals or changes in time intervals, etc.
[0239] The cache entry is typically stored in the cache 285 in
association with a time-to-live (TTL), which for example may be
assigned or determined by the TTL manager 244a of the cache
invalidator 244. The time-to-live of a cache entry is the amount of
time the entry is persisted in the cache 285 regardless of whether
the response is still valid or relevant for a given request or
client/application on the mobile device 250. For example, if the
time-to-live of a given cache entry is set to 12 hours, the cache
entry is purged, removed, or otherwise indicated as having exceeded
the time-to-live, even if the response body contained in the cache
entry is still current and applicable for the associated
request.
[0240] A default time-to-live can be automatically used for all
entries unless otherwise specified (e.g., by the TTL manager 244a),
or each cache entry can be created with its individual TTL (e.g.,
determined by the TTL manager 244a based on various dynamic or
static criteria). Note that each entry can have a single
time-to-live associated with both the response data and any
associated metadata. In some instances, the associated metadata may
have a different time-to-live (e.g., a longer time-to-live) than
the response data.
[0241] The content source having content for caching can, in
addition or in alternate, be identified to a proxy server (e.g.,
proxy server 125 or 325 shown in the examples of FIG. 1B-1C and
FIG. 3A, respectively) remote from and in wireless communication
with the mobile device 250 such that the proxy server can monitor
the content source (e.g., application server/content provider 110)
for new or changed data. Similarly, the local proxy (e.g., the
local proxy 175 or 275 of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG. 2A, respectively) can
identify to the proxy server that content received from a specific
application server/content provider is being stored as cached
elements in the local cache 285.
[0242] Once content has been locally cached, the cache policy
manager 245, upon receiving future polling requests to contact the
application server/content host (e.g., 110 or 310), can retrieve
the cached elements from the local cache to respond to the polling
request made at the mobile device 250 such that a radio of the
mobile device is not activated to service the polling request. For
example, the cache look-up engine 205 can query the cache 285 to
identify the response to be served to a response. The response can
be served from the cache in response to identifying a matching
cache entry and also using any metadata stored with the response in
the cache entry. The cache entries can be queried by the cache
look-up engine using a URI of the request or another type of
identifier (e.g., via the ID or URI filter 205a). The cache-lookup
engine 205 can further use the metadata (e.g., extract any timing
information or other relevant information) stored with the matching
cache entry to determine whether response is still suited for use
in being served to a current request.
[0243] Note that the cache-look-up can be performed by the engine
205 using one or more of various multiple strategies. In one
embodiment, multiple cook-up strategies can be executed
sequentially on each entry store din the cache 285, until at least
one strategy identifies a matching cache entry. The strategy
employed to performing cache look-up can include a strict matching
criteria or a matching criteria which allows for non-matching
parameters.
[0244] For example, the look-up engine 205 can perform a strict
matching strategy which searches for an exact match between an
identifier (e.g., a URI for a host or resource) referenced in a
present request for which the proxy is attempting to identify a
cache entry and an identifier stored with the cache entries. In the
case where identifiers include URIs or URLs, the matching algorithm
for strict matching will search for a cache entry where all the
parameters in the URLs match. For example:
Example 1
[0245] Cache contains entry for <URL>/products/ [0246]
Request is being made to <URL>/products/
[0247] Strict strategy will find a match, since both URIs are
same.
Example 2
[0248] Cache contains entry for <URL>/products/?query=all
[0249] Request is being made to <URL>/products/?query=sub
[0250] Under the strict strategy outlined above, a match will not
be found since the URIs differ in the query parameter.
[0251] In another example strategy, the look-up engine 205 looks
for a cache entry with an identifier that partially matches the
identifier references in a present request for which the proxy is
attempting to identify a matching cache entry. For example, the
look-up engine 205 may look for a cache entry with an identifier
which differs from the request identifier by a query parameter
value. In utilizing this strategy, the look-up engine 205 can
collect information collected for multiple previous requests (e.g.,
a list of arbitrary parameters in an identifier) to be later
checked with the detected arbitrary parameter in the current
request. For example, in the case where cache entries are stored
with URI or URL identifiers, the look-up engine searches for a
cache entry with a URI differing by a query parameter. If found,
the engine 205 can examine the cache entry for information
collected during previous requests (e.g. a list of arbitrary
parameters) and checked whether the arbitrary parameter detected in
or extracted from the current URI/URL belongs to the arbitrary
parameters list.
Example 1
[0252] Cache contains entry for <URL>/products/?query=all,
where query is marked as arbitrary. [0253] Request is being made to
<URL>/products/?query=sub
[0254] Match will be found, since query parameter is marked as
arbitrary.
Example 2
[0255] Cache contains entry for <URL>/products/?query=all,
where query is marked as arbitrary. [0256] Request is being made to
<URL>/products/?query=sub&sort=asc
[0257] Match will not be found, since current request contains sort
parameter which is not marked as arbitrary in the cache entry.
[0258] Additional strategies for detecting cache hit may be
employed. These strategies can be implemented singly or in any
combination thereof. A cache-hit can be determined when any one of
these strategies determines a match. A cache miss may be indicated
when the look-up engine 205 determines that the requested data
cannot be served from the cache 285, for any reason. For example, a
cache miss may be determined when no cache entries are identified
for any or all utilized look-up strategies.
[0259] Cache miss may also be determined when a matching cache
entry exists but determined to be invalid or irrelevant for the
current request. For example, the look-up engine 205 may further
analyze metadata (e.g., which may include timing data of the cache
entry) associated with the matching cache entry to determine
whether it is still suitable for use in responding to the present
request.
[0260] When the look-up engine 205 has identified a cache hit
(e.g., an event indicating that the requested data can be served
from the cache), the stored response in the matching cache entry
can be served from the cache to satisfy the request of an
application/client.
[0261] By servicing requests using cache entries stored in cache
285, network bandwidth and other resources need not be used to
request/receive poll responses which may have not changed from a
response that has already been received at the mobile device 250.
Such servicing and fulfilling application (e.g., mobile
application) requests locally via cache entries in the local cache
285 allows for more efficient resource and mobile network traffic
utilization and management since the request need not be sent over
the wireless network further consuming bandwidth. In general, the
cache 285 can be persisted between power on/off of the mobile
device 250, and persisted across application/client refreshes and
restarts.
[0262] For example, the local proxy 275, upon receipt of an
outgoing request from its mobile device 250 or from an application
or other type of client on the mobile device 250, can intercept the
request and determine whether a cached response is available in the
local cache 285 of the mobile device 250. If so, the outgoing
request is responded to by the local proxy 275 using the cached
response on the cache of the mobile device. As such, the outgoing
request can be filled or satisfied without a need to send the
outgoing request over the wireless network, thus conserving network
resources and battery consumption.
[0263] In one embodiment, the responding to the requesting
application/client on the device 250 is timed to correspond to a
manner in which the content server would have responded to the
outgoing request over a persistent connection (e.g., over the
persistent connection, or long-held HTTP connection, long poll type
connection, that would have been established absent interception by
the local proxy). The timing of the response can be emulated or
simulated by the local proxy 275 to preserve application behavior
such that end user experience is not affected, or minimally
affected by serving stored content from the local cache 285 rather
than fresh content received from the intended content source (e.g.,
content host/application server 110 of FIG. 1B-FIG. 1C). The timing
can be replicated exactly or estimated within a tolerance
parameter, which may go unnoticed by the user or treated similarly
by the application so as to not cause operation issues.
[0264] For example, the outgoing request can be a request for a
persistent connection intended for the content server (e.g.,
application server/content provider of examples of FIG. 1B-1C). In
a persistent connection (e.g., long poll, COMET-style push or any
other push simulation in asynchronous HTTP requests, long-held HTTP
request, HTTP streaming, or others) with a content source (server),
the connection is held for some time after a request is sent. The
connection can typically be persisted between the mobile device and
the server until content is available at the server to be sent to
the mobile device. Thus, there typically can be some delay in time
between when a long poll request is sent and when a response is
received from the content source. If a response is not provided by
the content source for a certain amount of time, the connection may
also terminate due to network reasons (e.g., socket closure) if a
response is not sent.
[0265] Thus, to emulate a response from a content server sent over
a persistent connection (e.g., a long poll style connection), the
manner of response of the content server can be simulated by
allowing a time interval to elapse before responding to the
outgoing request with the cached response. The length of the time
interval can be determined on a request by request basis or on an
application by application (client by client basis), for
example.
[0266] In one embodiment, the time interval is determined based on
request characteristics (e.g., timing characteristics) of an
application on the mobile device from which the outgoing request
originates. For example, poll request intervals (e.g., which can be
tracked, detected, and determined by the long poll detector 238a of
the poll interval detector 238) can be used to determine the time
interval to wait before responding to a request with a local cache
entry and managed by the response scheduler 249a.
[0267] One embodiment of the cache policy manager 245 includes a
poll schedule generator 247 which can generate a polling schedule
for one or more applications on the mobile device 250. The polling
schedule can specify a polling interval that can be employed by an
entity which is physically distinct and/or separate from the mobile
device 250 in monitoring the content source for one or more
applications (such that cached responses can be verified
periodically by polling a host server (host server 110 or 310) to
which the request is directed) on behalf of the mobile device. One
example of such an external entity which can monitor the content at
the source for the mobile device 250 is a proxy server (e.g., proxy
server 125 or 325 shown in the examples of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG.
3A-C).
[0268] The polling schedule (e.g., including a rate/frequency of
polling) can be determined, for example, based on the interval
between the polling requests directed to the content source from
the mobile device. The polling schedule or rate of polling may be
determined at the mobile device 250 (by the local proxy). In one
embodiment, the poll interval detector 238 of the application
behavior detector 236 can monitor polling requests directed to a
content source from the mobile device 250 in order to determine an
interval between the polling requests made from any or all
application (e.g., mobile application).
[0269] For example, the poll interval detector 238 can track
requests and responses for applications or clients on the device
250. In one embodiment, consecutive requests are tracked prior to
detection of an outgoing request initiated from the application
(e.g., mobile application) on the mobile device 250 by the same
mobile client or application (e.g., mobile application). The
polling rate can be determined using request information collected
for the request for which the response is cached. In one
embodiment, the rate is determined from averages of time intervals
between previous requests generated by the same client which
generated the request. For example, a first interval may be
computed between the current request and a previous request, and a
second interval can be computed between the two previous requests.
The polling rate can be set from the average of the first interval
and the second interval and sent to the proxy server in setting up
the caching strategy.
[0270] Alternate intervals may be computed in generating an
average; for example, multiple previous requests in addition to two
previous requests may be used, and more than two intervals may be
used in computing an average. In general, in computing intervals, a
given request need not have resulted in a response to be received
from the host server/content source in order to use it for interval
computation. In other words, the timing characteristics of a given
request may be used in interval computation, as long as the request
has been detected, even if the request failed in sending, or if the
response retrieval failed.
[0271] One embodiment of the poll schedule generator 247 includes a
schedule update engine 247a and/or a time adjustment engine 247b.
The schedule update engine 247a can determine a need to update a
rate or polling interval with which a given application
server/content host from a previously set value, based on a
detected interval change in the actual requests generated from a
client or application (e.g., mobile application) on the mobile
device 250.
[0272] For example, a request for which a monitoring rate was
determined may now be sent from the application (e.g., mobile
application) or client at a different request interval. The
scheduled update engine 247a can determine the updated polling
interval of the actual requests and generate a new rate, different
from the previously set rate to poll the host at on behalf of the
mobile device 250. The updated polling rate can be communicated to
the remote proxy (proxy server 325) over the cellular network for
the remote proxy to monitor the given host. In some instances, the
updated polling rate may be determined at the remote proxy or
remote entity which monitors the host.
[0273] In one embodiment, the time adjustment engine 247b can
further optimize the poll schedule generated to monitor the
application server/content source (110 or 310). For example, the
time adjustment engine 247b can optionally specify a time to start
polling to the proxy server. For example, in addition to setting
the polling interval at which the proxy server is to monitor the
application, server/content host can also specify the time at which
an actual request was generated at the mobile
client/application.
[0274] However, in some cases, due to inherent transmission delay
or added network delays or other types of latencies, the remote
proxy server receives the poll setup from the local proxy with some
delay (e.g., a few minutes, or a few seconds). This has the effect
of detecting response change at the source after a request is
generated by the mobile client/application causing the invalidate
of the cached response to occur after it has once again been served
to the application after the response is no longer current or
valid.
[0275] To resolve this non-optimal result of serving the out-dated
content once again before invalidating it, the time adjustment
engine 247b can specify the time (t0) at which polling should begin
in addition to the rate, where the specified initial time t0 can be
specified to the proxy server 325 as a time that is less than the
actual time when the request was generated by the mobile
app/client. This way, the server polls the resource slightly before
the generation of an actual request by the mobile client such that
any content change can be detected prior to an actual application
request. This prevents invalid or irrelevant out-dated
content/response from being served once again before fresh content
is served.
[0276] In one embodiment, an outgoing request from a mobile device
250 is detected to be for a persistent connection (e.g., a long
poll, COMET style push, and long-held (HTTP) request) based on
timing characteristics of prior requests from the same application
or client on the mobile device 250. For example, requests and/or
corresponding responses can be tracked by the request/response
tracking engine 238b of the long poll detector 238a of the poll
interval detector 238.
[0277] The timing characteristics of the consecutive requests can
be determined to set up a polling schedule for the application or
client. The polling schedule can be used to monitor the content
source (content source/application server) for content changes such
that cached content stored on the local cache in the mobile device
250 can be appropriately managed (e.g., updated or discarded). In
one embodiment, the timing characteristics can include, for
example, a response delay time (`D`) and/or an idle time
(`IT`).
[0278] In one embodiment, the response/request tracking engine 238b
can track requests and responses to determine, compute, and/or
estimate, the timing diagrams for applicant or client requests.
[0279] For example, the response/request tracking engine 238b
detects a first request (Request 0) initiated by a client on the
mobile device and a second request (Request 1) initiated by the
client on the mobile device after a response is received at the
mobile device responsive to the first request. The second request
is one that is subsequent to the first request.
[0280] In one embodiment, the response/request tracking engine 238b
can track requests and responses to determine, compute, and/or
estimate the timing diagrams for applicant or client requests. The
response/request tracking engine 238b can detect a first request
initiated by a client on the mobile device and a second request
initiated by the client on the mobile device after a response is
received at the mobile device responsive to the first request. The
second request is one that is subsequent to the first request.
[0281] The response/request tracking engine 238b further determines
relative timings between the first, second requests, and the
response received in response to the first request. In general, the
relative timings can be used by the long poll detector 238a to
determine whether requests generated by the application are long
poll requests.
[0282] Note that in general, the first and second requests that are
used by the response/request tracking engine 238b in computing the
relative timings are selected for use after a long poll hunting
period has settled or in the event when long poll hunting does not
occur. Timing characteristics that are typical of a long poll
hunting period can be, for example, detected by the long poll
hunting detector 238c. In other words, the requests tracked by the
response/request tracking engine 238b and used for determining
whether a given request is a long poll occurs after the long poll
has settled.
[0283] In one embodiment, the long poll hunting detector 238c can
identify or detect hunting mode, by identifying increasing request
intervals (e.g., increasing delays). The long poll hunting detector
238a can also detect hunting mode by detecting increasing request
intervals, followed by a request with no response (e.g., connection
timed out), or by detecting increasing request intervals followed
by a decrease in the interval. In addition, the long poll hunting
detector 238c can apply a filter value or a threshold value to
request-response time delay value (e.g., an absolute value) above
which the detected delay can be considered to be a long poll
request-response delay. The filter value can be any suitable value
characteristic of long polls and/or network conditions (e.g., 2 s,
5 s, 10 s, 15 s, 20 s., etc.) and can be used as a filter or
threshold value.
[0284] The response delay time (`D`) refers to the start time to
receive a response after a request has been sent and the idle
refers to time to send a subsequent request after the response has
been received. In one embodiment, the outgoing request is detected
to be for a persistent connection based on a comparison (e.g.,
performed by the tracking engine 238b) of the response delay time
relative (`D`) or average of (`D`) (e.g., any average over any
period of time) to the idle time (`IT`), for example, by the long
poll detector 238a. The number of averages used can be fixed,
dynamically adjusted, or changed over a longer period of time. For
example, the requests initiated by the client are determined to be
long poll requests if the response delay time interval is greater
than the idle time interval (D>IT or D>>IT). In one
embodiment, the tracking engine 238b of the long poll detector
computes, determines, or estimates the response delay time interval
as the amount of time elapsed between time of the first request and
initial detection or full receipt of the response.
[0285] In one embodiment, a request is detected to be for a
persistent connection when the idle time (`IT`) is short since
persistent connections, established in response to long poll
requests or long poll HTTP requests for example, can also be
characterized in detecting immediate or near-immediate issuance of
a subsequent request after receipt of a response to a previous
request (e.g., IT .about.0). As such, the idle time (`IT`) can also
be used to detect such immediate or near-immediate re-request to
identify long poll requests. The absolute or relative timings
determined by the tracking engine 238b are used to determine
whether the second request is immediately or near-immediately
re-requested after the response to the first request is received.
For example, a request may be categorized as a long poll request if
D+RT+IT.about.D+RT since IT is small for this to hold true. IT may
be determined to be small if it is less than a threshold value.
Note that the threshold value could be fixed or calculated over a
limited time period (a session, a day, a month, etc.), or
calculated over a longer time period (e.g., several months or the
life of the analysis). For example, for every request, the average
IT can be determined, and the threshold can be determined using
this average IT (e.g., the average IT less a certain percentage may
be used as the threshold). This can allow the threshold to
automatically adapt over time to network conditions and changes in
server capability, resource availability or server response. A
fixed threshold can take upon any value including by way of example
but not limitation (e.g., 1 s. 2 s. 3 s . . . etc.).
[0286] In one embodiment, the long poll detector 238a can compare
the relative timings (e.g., determined by the tracker engine 238b)
to request-response timing characteristics for other applications
to determine whether the requests of the application are long poll
requests. For example, the requests initiated by a client or
application can be determined to be long poll requests if the
response delay interval time (`D`) or the average response delay
interval time (e.g., averaged over x number of requests or any
number of delay interval times averaged over x amount of time) is
greater than a threshold value.
[0287] The threshold value can be determined using response delay
interval times for requests generated by other clients, for example
by the request/response tracking engine 238b and/or by the
application profile generator 239 (e.g., the response delay
interval tracker 239a). The other clients may reside on the same
mobile device and the threshold value is determined locally by
components on the mobile device. The threshold value can be
determined for all requests over all resources server over all
networks, for example. The threshold value can be set to a specific
constant value (e.g., 30 seconds, for example) to be used for all
requests, or any request which does not have an applicable
threshold value (e.g., long poll is detected if D>30
seconds).
[0288] In some instances, the other clients reside on different
mobile devices and the threshold can be determined by a proxy
server (e.g., proxy server 325 of the host 300 shown in the example
of FIG. 3A-B) which is external to the mobile device and able to
communicate over a wireless network with the multiple different
mobile devices, as will be further described with reference to FIG.
3B.
[0289] In one embodiment, the cache policy manager 245 sends the
polling schedule to the proxy server (e.g., proxy server 125 or 325
shown in the examples of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG. 3A) and can be used by
the proxy server in monitoring the content source, for example, for
changed or new content (updated response different from the cached
response associated with a request or application). A polling
schedule sent to the proxy can include multiple timing parameters
including but not limited to interval (time from request 1 to
request 2) or a time out interval (time to wait for response, used
in long polls, for example). Referring to the timing diagram of a
request/response timing sequence timing intervals `RI`, `D`, `RT`,
and/or `IT`, or some statistical manipulation of the above values
(e.g., average, standard deviation, etc.) may all or in part be
sent to the proxy server.
[0290] For example, in the case when the local proxy 275 detects a
long poll, the various timing intervals in a request/response
timing sequence (e.g., `D`, `RT`, and/or `IT`) can be sent to the
proxy server 325 for use in polling the content source (e.g.,
application server/content host 110). The local proxy 275 can also
identify to the proxy server 325 that a given application or
request to be monitored is a long poll request (e.g., instructing
the proxy server to set a `long poll flag`, for example). In
addition, the proxy server uses the various timing intervals to
determine when to send keep-alive indications on behalf of mobile
devices.
[0291] The local cache invalidator 244 of the caching policy
manager 245 can invalidate cache elements in the local cache (e.g.,
cache 185 or 285) when new or changed data (e.g., updated response)
is detected from the application server/content source for a given
request. The cached response can be determined to be invalid for
the outgoing request based on a notification received from the
proxy server (e.g., proxy 325 or the host server 300). The source
which provides responses to requests of the mobile client can be
monitored to determine relevancy of the cached response stored in
the cache of the mobile device 250 for the request. For example,
the cache invalidator 244 can further remove/delete the cached
response from the cache of the mobile device when the cached
response is no longer valid for a given request or a given
application.
[0292] In one embodiment, the cached response is removed from the
cache after it is provided once again to an application which
generated the outgoing request after determining that the cached
response is no longer valid. The cached response can be provided
again without waiting for the time interval or provided again after
waiting for a time interval (e.g., the time interval determined to
be specific to emulate the response delay in a long poll). In one
embodiment, the time interval is the response delay `D` or an
average value of the response delay `D` over two or more
values.
[0293] The new or changed data can be, for example, detected by the
proxy server (e.g., proxy server 125 or 325 shown in the examples
of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG. 3A). When a cache entry for a given
request/poll has been invalidated, the use of the radio on the
mobile device 250 can be enabled (e.g., by the local proxy 275 or
the cache policy manager 245) to satisfy the subsequent polling
requests, as further described with reference to the interaction
diagram of FIG. 9-10.
[0294] One embodiment of the cache policy manager 245 includes a
cache or connect selection engine 249 which can decide whether to
use a locally cached entry to satisfy a poll/content request
generated at the mobile device 250 by an application or widget. For
example, the local proxy 275 or the cache policy manger 245 can
intercept a polling request, made by an application (e.g., mobile
application) on the mobile device, to contact the application
server/content provider. The selection engine 249 can determine
whether the content received for the intercepted request has been
locally stored as cache elements for deciding whether the radio of
the mobile device needs to be activated to satisfy the request made
by the application (e.g., mobile application) and also determine
whether the cached response is still valid for the outgoing request
prior to responding to the outgoing request using the cached
response.
[0295] In one embodiment, the local proxy 275, in response to
determining that relevant cached content exists and is still valid,
can retrieve the cached elements from the local cache to provide a
response to the application (e.g., mobile application) which made
the polling request such that a radio of the mobile device is not
activated to provide the response to the application (e.g., mobile
application). In general, the local proxy 275 continues to provide
the cached response each time the outgoing request is received
until the updated response different from the cached response is
detected.
[0296] When it is determined that the cached response is no longer
valid, a new request for a given request is transmitted over the
wireless network for an updated response. The request can be
transmitted to the application server/content provider (e.g.,
server/host 110) or the proxy server on the host server (e.g.,
proxy 325 on the host 300) for a new and updated response. In one
embodiment the cached response can be provided again as a response
to the outgoing request if a new response is not received within
the time interval, prior to removal of the cached response from the
cache on the mobile device.
[0297] FIG. 2C depicts a block diagram illustrating another example
of components in the application behavior detector 236 and the
caching policy manager 245 in the local proxy 275 on the
client-side of the distributed proxy system shown in the example of
FIG. 2A. The illustrated application behavior detector 236 and the
caching policy manager 245 can, for example, enable the local proxy
275 to detect cache defeat and perform caching of content addressed
by identifiers intended to defeat cache.
[0298] In one embodiment, the caching policy manager 245 includes a
cache defeat resolution engine 221, an identifier formalizer 211, a
cache appropriateness decision engine 246, a poll schedule
generator 247, an application protocol module 248, a cache or
connect selection engine 249 having a cache query module 229,
and/or a local cache invalidator 244. The cache defeat resolution
engine 221 can further include a pattern extraction module 222
and/or a cache defeat parameter detector 223. The cache defeat
parameter detector 223 can further include a random parameter
detector 224 and/or a time/date parameter detector 226. One
embodiment further includes an application cache policy repository
243 coupled to the decision engine 246.
[0299] In one embodiment, the application behavior detector 236
includes a pattern detector 237, a poll interval detector 238, an
application profile generator 239, and/or a priority engine 241.
The pattern detector 237 can further include a cache defeat
parameter detector 223 having also, for example, a random parameter
detector 233 and/or a time/date parameter detector 234. One
embodiment further includes an application profile repository 242
coupled to the application profile generator 239. The application
profile generator 239, and the priority engine 241 have been
described in association with the description of the application
behavior detector 236 in the example of FIG. 2A.
[0300] The cache defeat resolution engine 221 can detect, identify,
track, manage, and/or monitor content or content sources (e.g.,
servers or hosts) which employ identifiers and/or are addressed by
identifiers (e.g., resource identifiers such as URLs and/or URIs)
with one or more mechanisms that defeat cache or are intended to
defeat cache. The cache defeat resolution engine 221 can, for
example, detect from a given data request generated by an
application or client that the identifier defeats or potentially
defeats cache, where the data request otherwise addresses content
or responses from a host or server (e.g., application
server/content host 110 or 310) that is cacheable.
[0301] In one embodiment, the cache defeat resolution engine 221
detects or identifies cache defeat mechanisms used by content
sources (e.g., application server/content host 110 or 310) using
the identifier of a data request detected at the mobile device 250.
The cache defeat resolution engine 221 can detect or identify a
parameter in the identifier which can indicate that cache defeat
mechanism is used. For example, a format, syntax, or pattern of the
parameter can be used to identify cache defeat (e.g., a pattern,
format, or syntax as determined or extracted by the pattern
extraction module 222).
[0302] The pattern extraction module 222 can parse an identifier
into multiple parameters or components and perform a matching
algorithm on each parameter to identify any of which match one or
more predetermined formats (e.g., a date and/or time format). For
example, the results of the matching or the parsed out parameters
from an identifier can be used (e.g., by the cache defeat parameter
detector 223) to identify cache defeating parameters which can
include one or more changing parameters.
[0303] The cache defeat parameter detector 223, in one embodiment
can detect random parameters (e.g., by the random parameter
detector 224) and/or time and/or date parameters which are
typically used for cache defeat. The cache defeat parameter
detector 223 can detect random parameters and/or time/dates using
commonly employed formats for these parameters and performing
pattern matching algorithms and tests.
[0304] In addition to detecting patterns, formats, and/or syntaxes,
the cache defeat parameter detector 223 further determines or
confirms whether a given parameter is defeating cache and whether
the addressed content can be cached by the distributed caching
system. The cache defeat parameter detector 223 can detect this by
analyzing responses received for the identifiers utilized by a
given data request. In general, a changing parameter in the
identifier is identified to indicate cache defeat when responses
corresponding to multiple data requests are the same even when the
multiple data requests uses identifiers with the changing parameter
being different for each of the multiple data requests. For
example, the request/response pairs illustrate that the responses
received are the same, even though the resource identifier includes
a parameter that changes with each request.
[0305] For example, at least two same responses may be required to
identify the changing parameter as indicating cache defeat. In some
instances, at least three same responses may be required. The
requirement for the number of same responses needed to determine
that a given parameter with a varying value between requests is
cache defeating may be application specific, context dependent,
and/or user dependent/user specified, or a combination of the
above. Such a requirement may also be static or dynamically
adjusted by the distributed cache system to meet certain
performance thresholds and/or either explicit/implicit feedback
regarding user experience (e.g., whether the user or application is
receiving relevant/fresh content responsive to requests). More of
the same responses may be required to confirm cache defeat, or for
the system to treat a given parameter as intended for cache defeat
if an application begins to malfunction due to response caching
and/or if the user expresses dissatisfaction (explicit user
feedback) or the system detects user frustration (implicit user
cues).
[0306] The cache appropriateness decision engine 246 can detect,
assess, or determine whether content from a content source (e.g.,
application server/content provider 110 in the example of FIG. 1C)
with which a mobile device 250 interacts, has content that may be
suitable for caching. In some instances, content from a given
application server/content provider (e.g., the server/provider 110
of FIG. 1C) is determined to be suitable for caching based on a set
of criteria (for example, criteria specifying time criticality of
the content that is being requested from the content source). In
one embodiment, the local proxy (e.g., the local proxy 175 or 275
of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG. 2A) applies a selection criteria to store
the content from the host server which is requested by an
application as cached elements in a local cache on the mobile
device to satisfy subsequent requests made by the application.
[0307] The selection criteria can also include, by way of example,
but not limitation, state of the mobile device indicating whether
the mobile device is active or inactive, network conditions, and/or
radio coverage statistics. The cache appropriateness decision
engine 246 can any one or any combination of the criteria, and in
any order, in identifying sources for which caching may be
suitable.
[0308] Once application servers/content providers having identified
or detected content that is potentially suitable for local caching
on the mobile device 250, the cache policy manager 245 can proceed
to cache the associated content received from the identified
sources by storing content received from the content source as
cache elements in a local cache (e.g., local cache 185 or 285 shown
in the examples of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG. 2A, respectively) on the
mobile device 250. The content source can also be identified to a
proxy server (e.g., proxy server 125 or 325 shown in the examples
of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG. 3A, respectively) remote from and in
wireless communication with the mobile device 250 such that the
proxy server can monitor the content source (e.g., application
server/content provider 110) for new or changed data. Similarly,
the local proxy (e.g., the local proxy 175 or 275 of FIG. 1B-1C and
FIG. 2A, respectively) can identify to the proxy server that
content received from a specific application server/content
provider is being stored as cached elements in the local cache.
[0309] In one embodiment, cache elements are stored in the local
cache 285 as being associated with a normalized version of an
identifier for an identifier employing one or more parameters
intended to defeat cache. The identifier can be normalized by the
identifier normalizer module 211 and the normalization process can
include, by way of example, one or more of: converting the URI
scheme and host to lower-case, capitalizing letters in
percent-encoded escape sequences, removing a default port, and
removing duplicate slashes.
[0310] In another embodiment, the identifier is normalized by
removing the parameter for cache defeat and/or replacing the
parameter with a static value which can be used to address or be
associated with the cached response received responsive to a
request utilizing the identifier by the normalizer 211 or the cache
defeat parameter handler 212. For example, the cached elements
stored in the local cache 285 (shown in FIG. 2A) can be identified
using the normalized version of the identifier or a hash value of
the normalized version of the identifier. The hash value of an
identifier or of the normalized identifier may be generated by the
hash engine 213.
[0311] Once content has been locally cached, the cache policy
manager 245 can, upon receiving future polling requests to contact
the content server, retrieve the cached elements from the local
cache to respond to the polling request made at the mobile device
250 such that a radio of the mobile device is not activated to
service the polling request. Such servicing and fulfilling
application (e.g., mobile application) requests locally via local
cache entries allow for more efficient resource and mobile network
traffic utilization and management since network bandwidth and
other resources need not be used to request/receive poll responses
which may have not changed from a response that has already been
received at the mobile device 250.
[0312] One embodiment of the cache policy manager 245 includes a
poll schedule generator 247 which can generate a polling schedule
for one or more applications on the mobile device 250. The polling
schedule can specify a polling interval that can be employed by the
proxy server (e.g., proxy server 125 or 325 shown in the examples
of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG. 3A) in monitoring the content source for one
or more applications. The polling schedule can be determined, for
example, based on the interval between the polling requests
directed to the content source from the mobile device. In one
embodiment, the poll interval detector 238 of the application
behavior detector can monitor polling requests directed to a
content source from the mobile device 250 in order to determine an
interval between the polling requests made from any or all
application (e.g., mobile application).
[0313] In one embodiment, the cache policy manager 245 sends the
polling schedule is sent to the proxy server (e.g., proxy server
125 or 325 shown in the examples of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG. 3A) and can
be used by the proxy server in monitoring the content source, for
example, for changed or new content. The local cache invalidator
244 of the caching policy manager 245 can invalidate cache elements
in the local cache (e.g., cache 185 or 285) when new or changed
data is detected from the application server/content source for a
given request. The new or changed data can be, for example,
detected by the proxy server. When a cache entry for a given
request/poll has been invalidated and/or removed (e.g., deleted
from cache) after invalidation, the use of the radio on the mobile
device 250 can be enabled (e.g., by the local proxy or the cache
policy manager 245) to satisfy the subsequent polling requests, as
further described with reference to the interaction diagram of FIG.
4B.
[0314] In another embodiment, the proxy server (e.g., proxy server
125 or 325 shown in the examples of FIG. 1B-1C 1C and FIG. 3A) uses
a modified version of a resource identifier used in a data request
to monitor a given content source (the application server/content
host 110 of FIG. 1B-1C to which the data request is addressed) for
new or changed data. For example, in the instance where the content
source or identifier is detected to employ cache defeat mechanisms,
a modified (e.g., normalized) identifier can be used instead to
poll the content source. The modified or normalized version of the
identifier can be communicated to the proxy server by the caching
policy manager 245, or more specifically the cache defeat parameter
handler 212 of the identifier normalizer 211.
[0315] The modified identifier used by the proxy server to poll the
content source on behalf of the mobile device/application (e.g.,
mobile application) may or may not be the same as the normalized
identifier. For example, the normalized identifier may be the
original identifier with the changing cache defeating parameter
removed whereas the modified identifier uses a substitute parameter
in place of the parameter that is used to defeat cache (e.g., the
changing parameter replaced with a static value or other
predetermined value known to the local proxy and/or proxy server).
The modified parameter can be determined by the local proxy 275 and
communicated to the proxy server. The modified parameter may also
be generated by the proxy server (e.g., by the identifier modifier
module 353 shown in the example of FIG. 3C).
[0316] One embodiment of the cache policy manager 245 includes a
cache or connect selection engine 249 which can decide whether to
use a locally cached entry to satisfy a poll/content request
generated at the mobile device 250 by an application or widget. For
example, the local proxy 275 or the cache policy manger 245 can
intercept a polling request made by an application (e.g., mobile
application) on the mobile device, to contact the application
server/content provider. The selection engine 249 can determine
whether the content received for the intercepted request has been
locally stored as cache elements for deciding whether the a radio
of the mobile device needs to be activated to satisfy the request
made by the application (e.g., mobile application). In one
embodiment, the local proxy 275, in response to determining that
relevant cached content exists and is still valid, can retrieve the
cached elements from the local cache to provide a response to the
application (e.g., mobile application) which made the polling
request such that a radio of the mobile device is not activated to
provide the response to the application (e.g., mobile
application).
[0317] In one embodiment, the cached elements stored in the local
cache 285 (shown in FIG. 2A) can be identified using a normalized
version of the identifier or a hash value of the normalized version
of the identifier, for example, using the cache query module 229.
Cached elements can be stored with normalized identifiers which
have cache defeating parameters removed or otherwise replaced such
that the relevant cached elements can be identified and retrieved
in the future to satisfy other requests employing the same type of
cache defeat. For example, when an identifier utilized in a
subsequent request is determined to be utilizing the same cache
defeating parameter, the normalized version of this identifier can
be generated and used to identify a cached response stored in the
mobile device cache to satisfy the data request. The hash value of
an identifier or of the normalized identifier may be generated by
the hash engine 213 of the identifier normalizer 211.
[0318] FIG. 2D depicts a block diagram illustrating examples of
additional components in the local proxy 275 shown in the example
of FIG. 2A which is further capable of performing mobile traffic
categorization and policy implementation based on application
behavior and/or user activity.
[0319] In this embodiment of the local proxy 275, the user activity
module 215 further includes one or more of, a user activity tracker
215a, a user activity prediction engine 215b, and/or a user
expectation manager 215c. The application behavior detect 236 can
further include a prioritization engine 241a, a time criticality
detection engine 241b, an application state categorizer 241c,
and/or an application traffic categorizer 241d. The local proxy 275
can further include a backlight detector 219 and/or a network
configuration selection engine 251. The network configuration
selection engine 251 can further include, one or more of, a
wireless generation standard selector 251a, a data rate specifier
251b, an access channel selection engine 251c, and/or an access
point selector 251d.
[0320] In one embodiment, the application behavior detector 236 is
able to detect, determined, identify, or infer, the activity state
of an application on the mobile device 250 to which traffic has
originated from or is directed to, for example, via the application
state categorizer 241c and/or the traffic categorizer 241d. The
activity state can be determined by whether the application is in a
foreground or background state on the mobile device (via the
application state categorizer 241c) since the traffic for a
foreground application vs. a background application may be handled
differently.
[0321] In one embodiment, the activity state can be determined,
detected, identified, or inferred with a level of certainty of
heuristics, based on the backlight status of the mobile device 250
(e.g., by the backlight detector 219) or other software agents or
hardware sensors on the mobile device, including but not limited
to, resistive sensors, capacitive sensors, ambient light sensors,
motion sensors, touch sensors, etc. In general, if the backlight is
on, the traffic can be treated as being or determined to be
generated from an application that is active or in the foreground,
or the traffic is interactive. In addition, if the backlight is on,
the traffic can be treated as being or determined to be traffic
from user interaction or user activity, or traffic containing data
that the user is expecting within some time frame.
[0322] In one embodiment, the activity state is determined based on
whether the traffic is interactive traffic or maintenance traffic.
Interactive traffic can include transactions from responses and
requests generated directly from user activity/interaction with an
application and can include content or data that a user is waiting
or expecting to receive. Maintenance traffic may be used to support
the functionality of an application which is not directly detected
by a user. Maintenance traffic can also include actions or
transactions that may take place in response to a user action, but
the user is not actively waiting for or expecting a response.
[0323] For example, a mail or message delete action at a mobile
device 250 generates a request to delete the corresponding mail or
message at the server, but the user typically is not waiting for a
response. Thus, such a request may be categorized as maintenance
traffic, or traffic having a lower priority (e.g., by the
prioritization engine 241a) and/or is not time-critical (e.g., by
the time criticality detection engine 214b).
[0324] Contrastingly, a mail `read` or message `read` request
initiated by a user a the mobile device 250, can be categorized as
`interactive traffic` since the user generally is waiting to access
content or data when they request to read a message or mail.
Similarly, such a request can be categorized as having higher
priority (e.g., by the prioritization engine 241a) and/or as being
time critical/time sensitive (e.g., by the time criticality
detection engine 241b).
[0325] The time criticality detection engine 241b can generally
determine, identify, infer the time sensitivity of data contained
in traffic sent from the mobile device 250 or to the mobile device
from a host server (e.g., host 300) or application server (e.g.,
app server/content source 110). For example, time sensitive data
can include, status updates, stock information updates, IM presence
information, email messages or other messages, actions generated
from mobile gaming applications, webpage requests, location
updates, etc. Data that is not time sensitive or time critical, by
nature of the content or request, can include requests to delete
messages, mark-as-read or edited actions, application-specific
actions such as a add-friend or delete-friend request, certain
types of messages, or other information which does not frequently
changing by nature, etc. In some instances when the data is not
time critical, the timing with which to allow the traffic to pass
through is set based on when additional data needs to be sent from
the mobile device 250. For example, traffic shaping engine 255 can
align the traffic with one or more subsequent transactions to be
sent together in a single power-on event of the mobile device radio
(e.g., using the alignment module 256 and/or the batching module
257). The alignment module 256 can also align polling requests
occurring close in time directed to the same host server, since
these request are likely to be responded to with the same data.
[0326] In the alternate or in combination, the activity state can
be determined from assessing, determining, evaluating, inferring,
identifying user activity at the mobile device 250 (e.g., via the
user activity module 215). For example, user activity can be
directly detected and tracked using the user activity tracker 215a.
The traffic resulting therefrom can then be categorized
appropriately for subsequent processing to determine the policy for
handling. Furthermore, user activity can be predicted or
anticipated by the user activity prediction engine 215b. By
predicting user activity or anticipating user activity, the traffic
thus occurring after the prediction can be treated as resulting
from user activity and categorized appropriately to determine the
transmission policy.
[0327] In addition, the user activity module 215 can also manage
user expectations (e.g., via the user expectation manager 215c
and/or in conjunction with the activity tracker 215 and/or the
prediction engine 215b) to ensure that traffic is categorized
appropriately such that user expectations are generally met. For
example, a user-initiated action should be analyzed (e.g., by the
expectation manager 215) to determine or infer whether the user
would be waiting for a response. If so, such traffic should be
handled under a policy such that the user does not experience an
unpleasant delay in receiving such a response or action.
[0328] In one embodiment, an advanced generation wireless standard
network is selected for use in sending traffic between a mobile
device and a host server in the wireless network based on the
activity state of the application on the mobile device for which
traffic is originated from or directed to. An advanced technology
standards such as the 3G, 3.5G, 3G+, 4G, or LTE network can be
selected for handling traffic generated as a result of user
interaction, user activity, or traffic containing data that the
user is expecting or waiting for. Advanced generation wireless
standard network can also be selected for to transmit data
contained in traffic directed to the mobile device which responds
to foreground activities.
[0329] In categorizing traffic and defining a transmission policy
for mobile traffic, a network configuration can be selected for use
(e.g., by the network configuration selection engine 251) on the
mobile device 250 in sending traffic between the mobile device and
a proxy server (325) and/or an application server (e.g., app
server/host 110). The network configuration that is selected can be
determined based on information gathered by the application
behavior module 236 regarding application activity state (e.g.,
background or foreground traffic), application traffic category
(e.g., interactive or maintenance traffic), any priorities of the
data/content, time sensitivity/criticality.
[0330] The network configuration selection engine 2510 can select
or specify one or more of, a generation standard (e.g., via
wireless generation standard selector 251a), a data rate (e.g., via
data rate specifier 251b), an access channel (e.g., access channel
selection engine 251c), and/or an access point (e.g., via the
access point selector 251d), in any combination.
[0331] For example, a more advanced generation (e.g., 3G, LTE, or
4G or later) can be selected or specified for traffic when the
activity state is in interaction with a user or in a foreground on
the mobile device. Contrastingly, an older generation standard
(e.g., 2G, 2.5G, or 3G or older) can be specified for traffic when
one or more of the following is detected, the application is not
interacting with the user, the application is running in the
background on the mobile device, or the data contained in the
traffic is not time critical, or is otherwise determined to have
lower priority.
[0332] Similarly, a network configuration with a slower data rate
can be specified for traffic when one or more of the following is
detected, the application is not interacting with the user, the
application is running in the background on the mobile device, or
the data contained in the traffic is not time critical. The access
channel (e.g., Forward access channel or dedicated channel) can be
specified.
[0333] FIG. 3A depicts a block diagram illustrating an example of
server-side components in a distributed proxy and cache system
residing on a host server 300 that manages traffic in a wireless
network for resource conservation. The server-side proxy (or proxy
server 325) can further categorize mobile traffic and/or implement
delivery policies based on application behavior, content priority,
user activity, and/or user expectations.
[0334] The host server 300 generally includes, for example, a
network interface 308 and/or one or more repositories 312, 314, and
316. Note that server 300 may be any portable/mobile or
non-portable device, server, cluster of computers and/or other
types of processing units (e.g., any number of a machine shown in
the example of FIG. 16) able to receive or transmit signals to
satisfy data requests over a network including any wired or
wireless networks (e.g., WiFi, cellular, Bluetooth, etc.).
[0335] The network interface 308 can include networking module(s)
or devices(s) that enable the server 300 to mediate data in a
network with an entity that is external to the host server 300,
through any known and/or convenient communications protocol
supported by the host and the external entity. Specifically, the
network interface 308 allows the server 300 to communicate with
multiple devices including mobile phone devices 350 and/or one or
more application servers/content providers 310.
[0336] The host server 300 can store information about connections
(e.g., network characteristics, conditions, types of connections,
etc.) with devices in the connection metadata repository 312.
Additionally, any information about third party application or
content providers can also be stored in the repository 312. The
host server 300 can store information about devices (e.g., hardware
capability, properties, device settings, device language, network
capability, manufacturer, device model, OS, OS version, etc.) in
the device information repository 314. Additionally, the host
server 300 can store information about network providers and the
various network service areas in the network service provider
repository 316.
[0337] The communication enabled by network interface 308 allows
for simultaneous connections (e.g., including cellular connections)
with devices 350 and/or connections (e.g., including
wired/wireless, HTTP, Internet connections, LAN, WiFi, etc.) with
content servers/providers 310 to manage the traffic between devices
350 and content providers 310 or other servers such as an ad server
320a, promotional content server 320b, or an e-coupon server 320c
for optimizing network resource utilization and/or to conserve
power (battery) consumption on the serviced devices 350. The host
server 300 can communicate with mobile devices 350 serviced by
different network service providers and/or in the same/different
network service areas. The host server 300 can operate and is
compatible with devices 350 with varying types or levels of mobile
capabilities, including by way of example but not limitation, 1G,
2G, 2G transitional (2.5G, 2.75G), 3G (IMT-2000), 3G transitional
(3.5G, 3.75G, 3.9G), 4G (IMT-advanced), etc.
[0338] In general, the network interface 308 can include one or
more of a network adaptor card, a wireless network interface card
(e.g., SMS interface, WiFi interface, interfaces for various
generations of mobile communication standards including but not
limited to 1G, 2G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G type networks such as LTE, WiMAX,
etc.), Bluetooth, WiFi, or any other network whether or not
connected via a router, an access point, a wireless router, a
switch, a multilayer switch, a protocol converter, a gateway, a
bridge, a bridge router, a hub, a digital media receiver, and/or a
repeater.
[0339] The host server 300 can further include server-side
components of the distributed proxy and cache system which can
include a proxy server 325 and a server cache 335. In one
embodiment, the proxy server 325 can include an HTTP access engine
345, a caching policy manager 355, a proxy controller 365, a
traffic shaping engine 375, a new data detector 347 and/or a
connection manager 395.
[0340] The HTTP access engine 345 may further include a heartbeat
manager 398; the proxy controller 365 may further include a data
invalidator module 368; the traffic shaping engine 375 may further
include a control protocol 376 and a batching module 377.
Additional or less components/modules/engines can be included in
the proxy server 325 and each illustrated component.
[0341] As used herein, a "module," a "manager," a "handler," a
"detector," an "interface," a "controller," a "normalizer," a
"generator," an "invalidator," or an "engine" includes a general
purpose, dedicated or shared processor and, typically, firmware or
software modules that are executed by the processor. Depending upon
implementation-specific or other considerations, the module,
manager, handler, detector, interface, controller, normalizer,
generator, invalidator, or engine can be centralized or its
functionality distributed. The module, manager, handler, detector,
interface, controller, normalizer, generator, invalidator, or
engine can include general or special purpose hardware, firmware,
or software embodied in a computer-readable (storage) medium for
execution by the processor. As used herein, a computer-readable
medium or computer-readable storage medium is intended to include
all mediums that are statutory (e.g., in the United States, under
35 U.S.C. 101), and to specifically exclude all mediums that are
non-statutory in nature to the extent that the exclusion is
necessary for a claim that includes the computer-readable (storage)
medium to be valid. Known statutory computer-readable mediums
include hardware (e.g., registers, random access memory (RAM),
non-volatile (NV) storage, to name a few), but may or may not be
limited to hardware.
[0342] In the example of a device (e.g., mobile device 350) making
an application or content request to an application server or
content provider 310, the request may be intercepted and routed to
the proxy server 325 which is coupled to the device 350 and the
application server/content provider 310. Specifically, the proxy
server is able to communicate with the local proxy (e.g., proxy 175
and 275 of the examples of FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 respectively) of the
mobile device 350, the local proxy forwards the data request to the
proxy server 325 in some instances for further processing and, if
needed, for transmission to the application server/content server
310 for a response to the data request.
[0343] In such a configuration, the host 300, or the proxy server
325 in the host server 300 can utilize intelligent information
provided by the local proxy in adjusting its communication with the
device in such a manner that optimizes use of network and device
resources. For example, the proxy server 325 can identify
characteristics of user activity on the device 350 to modify its
communication frequency. The characteristics of user activity can
be determined by, for example, the activity/behavior awareness
module 366 in the proxy controller 365 via information collected by
the local proxy on the device 350.
[0344] In one embodiment, communication frequency can be controlled
by the connection manager 395 of the proxy server 325, for example,
to adjust push frequency of content or updates to the device 350.
For instance, push frequency can be decreased by the connection
manager 395 when characteristics of the user activity indicate that
the user is inactive. In one embodiment, when the characteristics
of the user activity indicate that the user is subsequently active
after a period of inactivity, the connection manager 395 can adjust
the communication frequency with the device 350 to send data that
was buffered as a result of decreased communication frequency to
the device 350.
[0345] In addition, the proxy server 325 includes priority
awareness of various requests, transactions, sessions,
applications, and/or specific events. Such awareness can be
determined by the local proxy on the device 350 and provided to the
proxy server 325. The priority awareness module 367 of the proxy
server 325 can generally assess the priority (e.g., including
time-criticality, time-sensitivity, etc.) of various events or
applications; additionally, the priority awareness module 367 can
track priorities determined by local proxies of devices 350.
[0346] In one embodiment, through priority awareness, the
connection manager 395 can further modify communication frequency
(e.g., use or radio as controlled by the radio controller 396) of
the server 300 with the devices 350. For example, the server 300
can notify the device 350, thus requesting use of the radio if it
is not already in use when data or updates of an
importance/priority level which meets a criteria becomes available
to be sent.
[0347] In one embodiment, the proxy server 325 can detect multiple
occurrences of events (e.g., transactions, content, data received
from server/provider 310) and allow the events to accumulate for
batch transfer to device 350. Batch transfer can be cumulated and
transfer of events can be delayed based on priority awareness
and/or user activity/application behavior awareness as tracked by
modules 367 and/or 366. For example, batch transfer of multiple
events (of a lower priority) to the device 350 can be initiated by
the batching module 377 when an event of a higher priority (meeting
a threshold or criteria) is detected at the server 300. In
addition, batch transfer from the server 300 can be triggered when
the server receives data from the device 350, indicating that the
device radio is already in use and is thus on. In one embodiment,
the proxy server 325 can order the each messages/packets in a batch
for transmission based on event/transaction priority such that
higher priority content can be sent first in case connection is
lost or the battery dies, etc.
[0348] In one embodiment, the server 300 caches data (e.g., as
managed by the caching policy manager 355) such that communication
frequency over a network (e.g., cellular network) with the device
350 can be modified (e.g., decreased). The data can be cached, for
example, in the server cache 335 for subsequent retrieval or batch
sending to the device 350 to potentially decrease the need to turn
on the device 350 radio. The server cache 335 can be partially or
wholly internal to the host server 300, although in the example of
FIG. 3A it is shown as being external to the host 300. In some
instances, the server cache 335 may be the same as and/or
integrated in part or in whole with another cache managed by
another entity (e.g., the optional caching proxy server 199 shown
in the example of FIG. 1C), such as being managed by an application
server/content provider 310, a network service provider, or another
third party.
[0349] In one embodiment, content caching is performed locally on
the device 350 with the assistance of host server 300. For example,
proxy server 325 in the host server 300 can query the application
server/provider 310 with requests and monitor changes in responses.
When changed or new responses are detected (e.g., by the new data
detector 347), the proxy server 325 can notify the mobile device
350 such that the local proxy on the device 350 can make the
decision to invalidate (e.g., indicated as out-dated) the relevant
cache entries stored as any responses in its local cache.
Alternatively, the data invalidator module 368 can automatically
instruct the local proxy of the device 350 to invalidate certain
cached data, based on received responses from the application
server/provider 310. The cached data is marked as invalid, and can
get replaced or deleted when new content is received from the
content server 310.
[0350] Note that data change can be detected by the detector 347 in
one or more ways. For example, the server/provider 310 can notify
the host server 300 upon a change. The change can also be detected
at the host server 300 in response to a direct poll of the source
server/provider 310. In some instances, the proxy server 325 can in
addition, pre-load the local cache on the device 350 with the
new/updated data. This can be performed when the host server 300
detects that the radio on the mobile device is already in use, or
when the server 300 has additional content/data to be sent to the
device 350.
[0351] One or more the above mechanisms can be implemented
simultaneously or adjusted/configured based on application (e.g.,
different policies for different servers/providers 310). In some
instances, the source provider/server 310 may notify the host 300
for certain types of events (e.g., events meeting a priority
threshold level). In addition, the provider/server 310 may be
configured to notify the host 300 at specific time intervals,
regardless of event priority.
[0352] In one embodiment, the proxy server 325 of the host 300 can
monitor/track responses received for the data request from the
content source for changed results prior to returning the result to
the mobile device, such monitoring may be suitable when data
request to the content source has yielded same results to be
returned to the mobile device, thus preventing network/power
consumption from being used when no new changes are made to a
particular requested. The local proxy of the device 350 can
instruct the proxy server 325 to perform such monitoring or the
proxy server 325 can automatically initiate such a process upon
receiving a certain number of the same responses (e.g., or a number
of the same responses in a period of time) for a particular
request.
[0353] In one embodiment, the server 300, through the
activity/behavior awareness module 366, is able to identify or
detect user activity at a device that is separate from the mobile
device 350. For example, the module 366 may detect that a user's
message inbox (e.g., email or types of inbox) is being accessed.
This can indicate that the user is interacting with his/her
application using a device other than the mobile device 350 and may
not need frequent updates, if at all.
[0354] The server 300, in this instance, can thus decrease the
frequency with which new or updated content is sent to the mobile
device 350, or eliminate all communication for as long as the user
is detected to be using another device for access. Such frequency
decrease may be application specific (e.g., for the application
with which the user is interacting with on another device), or it
may be a general frequency decrease (E.g., since the user is
detected to be interacting with one server or one application via
another device, he/she could also use it to access other services.)
to the mobile device 350.
[0355] In one embodiment, the host server 300 is able to poll
content sources 310 on behalf of devices 350 to conserve power or
battery consumption on devices 350. For example, certain
applications on the mobile device 350 can poll its respective
server 310 in a predictable recurring fashion. Such recurrence or
other types of application behaviors can be tracked by the
activity/behavior module 366 in the proxy controller 365. The host
server 300 can thus poll content sources 310 for applications on
the mobile device 350 that would otherwise be performed by the
device 350 through a wireless (e.g., including cellular
connectivity). The host server can poll the sources 310 for new or
changed data by way of the HTTP access engine 345 to establish HTTP
connection or by way of radio controller 396 to connect to the
source 310 over the cellular network. When new or changed data is
detected, the new data detector 347 can notify the device 350 that
such data is available and/or provide the new/changed data to the
device 350.
[0356] In one embodiment, the connection manager 395 determines
that the mobile device 350 is unavailable (e.g., the radio is
turned off) and utilizes SMS to transmit content to the device 350,
for instance, via the SMSC shown in the example of FIG. 1C. SMS is
used to transmit invalidation messages, batches of invalidation
messages, or even content in the case where the content is small
enough to fit into just a few (usually one or two) SMS messages.
This avoids the need to access the radio channel to send overhead
information. The host server 300 can use SMS for certain
transactions or responses having a priority level above a threshold
or otherwise meeting a criteria. The server 300 can also utilize
SMS as an out-of-band trigger to maintain or wake-up an IP
connection as an alternative to maintaining an always-on IP
connection. In one embodiment, connection manager 395 may include
an Internet/WiFi controller 397 for this purpose.
[0357] In one embodiment, the connection manager 395 in the proxy
server 325 (e.g., the heartbeat manager 398) can generate and/or
transmit heartbeat messages on behalf of connected devices 350 to
maintain a backend connection with a provider 310 for applications
running on devices 350.
[0358] For example, in the distributed proxy system, local cache on
the device 350 can prevent any or all heartbeat messages needed to
maintain TCP/IP connections required for applications from being
sent over the cellular, or other, network and instead rely on the
proxy server 325 on the host server 300 to generate and/or send the
heartbeat messages to maintain a connection with the backend (e.g.,
application server/provider 110 in the example of FIG. 1A). The
proxy server can generate the keep-alive (heartbeat) messages
independent of the operations of the local proxy on the mobile
device.
[0359] The repositories 312, 314, and/or 316 can additionally store
software, descriptive data, images, system information, drivers,
and/or any other data item utilized by other components of the host
server 300 and/or any other servers for operation. The repositories
may be managed by a database management system (DBMS), for example,
which may be but is not limited to Oracle, DB2, Microsoft Access,
Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, FileMaker, etc.
[0360] The repositories can be implemented via object-oriented
technology and/or via text files and can be managed by a
distributed database management system, an object-oriented database
management system (OODBMS) (e.g., ConceptBase, FastDB Main Memory
Database Management System, JDOInstruments, ObjectDB, etc.), an
object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) (e.g.,
Informix, OpenLink Virtuoso, VMDS, etc.), a file system, and/or any
other convenient or known database management package.
[0361] FIG. 3B depicts a block diagram illustrating a further
example of components in the caching policy manager 355 in the
cache system shown in the example of FIG. 3A which is capable of
caching and adapting caching strategies for application (e.g.,
mobile application) behavior and/or network conditions.
[0362] The caching policy manager 355, in one embodiment, can
further include a metadata generator 303, a cache look-up engine
305, an application protocol module 356, a content source
monitoring engine 357 having a poll schedule manager 358, a
response analyzer 361, and/or an updated or new content detector
359. In one embodiment, the poll schedule manager 358 further
includes a host timing simulator 358a, a long poll request
detector/manager 358b, a schedule update engine 358c, and/or a time
adjustment engine 358d. The metadata generator 303 and/or the cache
look-up engine 305 can be coupled to the cache 335 (or, server
cache) for modification or addition to cache entries or querying
thereof.
[0363] In one embodiment, the proxy server (e.g., the proxy server
125 or 325 of the examples of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG. 3A) can monitor a
content source for new or changed data via the monitoring engine
357. The proxy server, as shown, is an entity external to the
mobile device 250 of FIG. 2A-B. The content source (e.g.,
application server/content provider 110 of FIG. 1B-1C) can be one
that has been identified to the proxy server (e.g., by the local
proxy) as having content that is being locally cached on a mobile
device (e.g., mobile device 150 or 250). The content source can be
monitored, for example, by the monitoring engine 357 at a frequency
that is based on polling frequency of the content source at the
mobile device. The poll schedule can be generated, for example, by
the local proxy and sent to the proxy server. The poll frequency
can be tracked and/or managed by the poll schedule manager 358.
[0364] For example, the proxy server can poll the host (e.g.,
content provider/application server) on behalf of the mobile device
and simulate the polling behavior of the client to the host via the
host timing simulator 358a. The polling behavior can be simulated
to include characteristics of a long poll request-response
sequences experienced in a persistent connection with the host
(e.g., by the long poll request detector/manager 358b). Note that
once a polling interval/behavior is set, the local proxy 275 on the
device-side and/or the proxy server 325 on the server-side can
verify whether application and application server/content host
behavior match or can be represented by this predicted pattern. In
general, the local proxy and/or the proxy server can detect
deviations and, when appropriate, re-evaluate and compute,
determine, or estimate another polling interval.
[0365] In one embodiment, the caching policy manager 355 on the
server-side of the distribute proxy can, in conjunction with or
independent of the proxy server 275 on the mobile device, identify
or detect long poll requests. For example, the caching policy
manager 355 can determine a threshold value to be used in
comparison with a response delay interval time in a
request-response sequence for an application request to identify or
detect long poll requests, possible long poll requests (e.g.,
requests for a persistent connection with a host with which the
client communicates including, but not limited to, a long-held HTTP
request, a persistent connection enabling COMET style push, request
for HTTP streaming, etc.), or other requests which can otherwise be
treated as a long poll request.
[0366] For example, the threshold value can be determined by the
proxy 325 using response delay interval times for requests
generated by clients/applications across mobile devices which may
be serviced by multiple different cellular or wireless networks.
Since the proxy 325 resides on host 300 is able to communicate with
multiple mobile devices via multiple networks, the caching policy
manager 355 has access to application/client information at a
global level which can be used in setting threshold values to
categorize and detect long polls.
[0367] By tracking response delay interval times across
applications across devices over different or same networks, the
caching policy manager 355 can set one or more threshold values to
be used in comparison with response delay interval times for long
poll detection. Threshold values set by the proxy server 325 can be
static or dynamic, and can be associated with conditions and/or a
time-to-live (an expiration time/date in relative or absolute
terms).
[0368] In addition, the caching policy manager 355 of the proxy 325
can further determine the threshold value, in whole or in part,
based on network delays of a given wireless network, networks
serviced by a given carrier (service provider), or multiple
wireless networks. The proxy 325 can also determine the threshold
value for identification of long poll requests based on delays of
one or more application server/content provider (e.g., 110) to
which application (e.g., mobile application) or mobile client
requests are directed.
[0369] The proxy server can detect new or changed data at a
monitored content source and transmits a message to the mobile
device notifying it of such a change such that the mobile device
(or the local proxy on the mobile device) can take appropriate
action (e.g., to invalidate the cache elements in the local cache).
In some instances, the proxy server (e.g., the caching policy
manager 355) upon detecting new or changed data can also store the
new or changed data in its cache (e.g., the server cache 135 or 335
of the examples of FIG. 1C and FIG. 3A, respectively). The
new/updated data stored in the server cache 335 can be used in some
instances to satisfy content requests at the mobile device; for
example, it can be used after the proxy server has notified the
mobile device of the new/changed content and that the locally
cached content has been invalidated.
[0370] The metadata generator 303, similar to the metadata
generator 203 shown in the example of FIG. 2B, can generate
metadata for responses cached for requests at the mobile device
250. The metadata generator 303 can generate metadata for cache
entries stored in the server cache 335. Similarly, the cache
look-up engine 305 can include the same or similar functions are
those described for the cache look-up engine 205 shown in the
example of FIG. 2B.
[0371] The response analyzer 361 can perform any or all of the
functionalities related to analyzing responses received for
requests generated at the mobile device 250 in the same or similar
fashion to the response analyzer 246d of the local proxy shown in
the example of FIG. 2B. Since the proxy server 325 is able to
receive responses from the application server/content source 310
directed to the mobile device 250, the proxy server 325 (e.g., the
response analyzer 361) can perform similar response analysis steps
to determine cacheability, as described for the response analyzer
of the local proxy. The responses can be analyzed in addition to or
in lieu of the analysis that can be performed at the local proxy
275 on the mobile device 250.
[0372] Furthermore, the schedule update engine 358c can update the
polling interval of a given application server/content host based
on application request interval changes of the application at the
mobile device 250 as described for the schedule update engine in
the local proxy 275. The time adjustment engine 358d can set an
initial time at which polls of the application server/content host
is to begin to prevent the serving of out of date content once
again before serving fresh content as described for the schedule
update engine in the local proxy 275. Both the schedule updating
and the time adjustment algorithms can be performed in conjunction
with or in lieu of the similar processes performed at the local
proxy 275 on the mobile device 250.
[0373] FIG. 3C depicts a block diagram illustrating another example
of components in the caching policy manager 355 in the proxy server
375 on the server-side of the distributed proxy system shown in the
example of FIG. 3A which is capable of managing and detecting cache
defeating mechanisms and monitoring content sources.
[0374] The caching policy manager 355, in one embodiment, can
further include a cache defeating source manager 352, a content
source monitoring engine 357 having a poll schedule manager 358,
and/or an updated or new content detector 359. The cache defeating
source manager 352 can further include an identifier modifier
module 353 and/or an identifier pattern tracking module 354.
[0375] In one embodiment, the proxy server (e.g., the proxy server
125 or 325 of the examples of FIG. 1B-1C and FIG. 3A) can monitor a
content source for new or changed data via the monitoring engine
357. The content source (e.g., application server/content provider
110 of FIG. 1B-1C or 310 of FIG. 3A) can be one that has been
identified to the proxy server (e.g., by the local proxy) as having
content that is being locally cached on a mobile device (e.g.,
mobile device 150 or 250). The content source 310 can be monitored,
for example, by the monitoring engine 357 at a frequency that is
based on polling frequency of the content source at the mobile
device. The poll schedule can be generated, for example, by the
local proxy and sent to the proxy server 325. The poll frequency
can be tracked and/or managed by the poll schedule manager 358.
[0376] In one embodiment, the proxy server 325 uses a normalized
identifier or modified identifier in polling the content source 310
to detect new or changed data (responses). The normalized
identifier or modified identifier can also be used by the proxy
server 325 in storing responses on the server cache 335. In
general, the normalized or modified identifiers can be used when
cache defeat mechanisms are employed for cacheable content. Cache
defeat mechanisms can be in the form of a changing parameter in an
identifier such as a URI or URL and can include a changing
time/data parameter, a randomly varying parameter, or other types
parameters.
[0377] The normalized identifier or modified identifier removes or
otherwise replaces the changing parameter for association with
subsequent requests and identification of associated responses and
can also be used to poll the content source. In one embodiment, the
modified identifier is generated by the cache defeating source
manager 352 (e.g., the identifier modifier module 353) of the
caching policy manager 355 on the proxy server 325 (server-side
component of the distributed proxy system). The modified identifier
can utilize a substitute parameter (which is generally static over
a period of time) in place of the changing parameter that is used
to defeat cache.
[0378] The cache defeating source manager 352 optionally includes
the identifier pattern tracking module 354 to track, store, and
monitor the various modifications of an identifier or identifiers
that address content for one or more content sources (e.g.,
application server/content host 110 or 310) to continuously verify
that the modified identifiers and/or normalized identifiers used by
the proxy server 325 to poll the content sources work as predicted
or intended (e.g., receive the same responses or responses that are
otherwise still relevant compared to the original, unmodified
identifier).
[0379] In the event that the pattern tracking module 354 detects a
modification or normalization of an identifier that causes erratic
or unpredictable behavior (e.g., unexpected responses to be sent)
on the content source, the tracking module 354 can log the
modification and instruct the cache defeating source manager 352 to
generate another modification/normalization, or notify the local
proxy (e.g., local proxy 275) to generate another
modification/normalization for use in polling the content source.
In the alternative or in parallel, the requests from the given
mobile application/client on the mobile device (e.g., mobile device
250) can temporarily be sent across the network to the content
source for direct responses to be provided to the mobile device
and/or until a modification of an identifier which works can be
generated.
[0380] In one embodiment, responses are stored as server cache
elements in the server cache when new or changed data is detected
for a response that is already stored on a local cache (e.g., cache
285) of the mobile device (e.g., mobile device 250). Therefore, the
mobile device or local proxy 275 can connect to the proxy server
325 to retrieve the new or changed data for a response to a request
which was previously cached locally in the local cache 285 (now
invalid, out-dated, or otherwise determined to be irrelevant).
[0381] The proxy server 325 can detect new or changed data at a
monitored application server/content host 310 and transmits a
message to the mobile device notifying it of such a change such
that the mobile device (or the local proxy on the mobile device)
can take appropriate action (e.g., to invalidate the cache elements
in the local cache). In some instances, the proxy server (e.g., the
caching policy manager 355), upon detecting new or changed data,
can also store the new or changed data in its cache (e.g., the
server cache 135 or 335 of the examples of FIG. 1C and FIG. 3A,
respectively). The updated/new data stored in the server cache can
be used, in some instances, to satisfy content requests at the
mobile device; for example, it can be used after the proxy server
has notified the mobile device of the new/changed content and that
the locally cached content has been invalidated.
[0382] FIG. 3D depicts a block diagram illustrating examples of
additional components in proxy server 325 shown in the example of
FIG. 3A which is further capable of performing mobile traffic
categorization and policy implementation based on application
behavior and/or traffic priority.
[0383] In one embodiment of the proxy server 325, the traffic
shaping engine 375 is further coupled to a traffic analyzer 336 for
categorizing mobile traffic for policy definition and
implementation for mobile traffic and transactions directed to one
or more mobile devices (e.g., mobile device 250 of FIG. 2A-2D) or
to an application server/content host (e.g., 110 of FIG. 1B-1C). In
general, the proxy server 325 is remote from the mobile devices and
remote from the host server, as shown in the examples of FIG.
1B-1C. The proxy server 325 or the host server 300 can monitor the
traffic for multiple mobile devices and is capable of categorizing
traffic and devising traffic policies for different mobile
devices.
[0384] In addition, the proxy server 325 or host server 300 can
operate with multiple carriers or network operators and can
implement carrier-specific policies relating to categorization of
traffic and implementation of traffic policies for the various
categories. For example, the traffic analyzer 336 of the proxy
server 325 or host server 300 can include one or more of, a
prioritization engine 341a, a time criticality detection engine
341b, an application state categorizer 341c, and/or an application
traffic categorizer 341d.
[0385] Each of these engines or modules can track different
criterion for what is considered priority, time critical,
background/foreground, or interactive/maintenance based on
different wireless carriers. Different criterion may also exist for
different mobile device types (e.g., device model, manufacturer,
operating system, etc.). In some instances, the user of the mobile
devices can adjust the settings or criterion regarding traffic
category and the proxy server 325 is able to track and implement
these user adjusted/configured settings.
[0386] In one embodiment, the traffic analyzer 336 is able to
detect, determined, identify, or infer, the activity state of an
application on one or more mobile devices (e.g., mobile device 150
or 250) which traffic has originated from or is directed to, for
example, via the application state categorizer 341c and/or the
traffic categorizer 341d. The activity state can be determined
based on whether the application is in a foreground or background
state on one or more of the mobile devices (via the application
state categorizer 341c) since the traffic for a foreground
application vs. a background application may be handled differently
to optimize network use.
[0387] In the alternate or in combination, the activity state of an
application can be determined by the wirelessly connected mobile
devices (e.g., via the application behavior detectors in the local
proxies) and communicated to the proxy server 325. For example, the
activity state can be determined, detected, identified, or inferred
with a level of certainty of heuristics, based on the backlight
status at mobile devices (e.g., by a backlight detector) or other
software agents or hardware sensors on the mobile device, including
but not limited to, resistive sensors, capacitive sensors, ambient
light sensors, motion sensors, touch sensors, etc. In general, if
the backlight is on, the traffic can be treated as being or
determined to be generated from an application that is active or in
the foreground, or the traffic is interactive. In addition, if the
backlight is on, the traffic can be treated as being or determined
to be traffic from user interaction or user activity, or traffic
containing data that the user is expecting within some time
frame.
[0388] The activity state can be determined from assessing,
determining, evaluating, inferring, identifying user activity at
the mobile device 250 (e.g., via the user activity module 215) and
communicated to the proxy server 325. In one embodiment, the
activity state is determined based on whether the traffic is
interactive traffic or maintenance traffic. Interactive traffic can
include transactions from responses and requests generated directly
from user activity/interaction with an application and can include
content or data that a user is waiting or expecting to receive.
Maintenance traffic may be used to support the functionality of an
application which is not directly detected by a user. Maintenance
traffic can also include actions or transactions that may take
place in response to a user action, but the user is not actively
waiting for or expecting a response.
[0389] The time criticality detection engine 341b can generally
determine, identify, infer the time sensitivity of data contained
in traffic sent from the mobile device 250 or to the mobile device
from the host server 300 or proxy server 325, or the application
server (e.g., app server/content source 110). For example, time
sensitive data can include, status updates, stock information
updates, IM presence information, email messages or other messages,
actions generated from mobile gaming applications, webpage
requests, location updates, etc.
[0390] Data that is not time sensitive or time critical, by nature
of the content or request, can include requests to delete messages,
mark-as-read or edited actions, application-specific actions such
as a add-friend or delete-friend request, certain types of
messages, or other information which does not frequently changing
by nature, etc. In some instances when the data is not time
critical, the timing with which to allow the traffic to be sent to
a mobile device is based on when there is additional data that
needs to the sent to the same mobile device. For example, traffic
shaping engine 375 can align the traffic with one or more
subsequent transactions to be sent together in a single power-on
event of the mobile device radio (e.g., using the alignment module
378 and/or the batching module 377). The alignment module 378 can
also align polling requests occurring close in time directed to the
same host server, since these request are likely to be responded to
with the same data.
[0391] In general, whether new or changed data is sent from a host
server to a mobile device can be determined based on whether an
application on the mobile device to which the new or changed data
is relevant, is running in a foreground (e.g., by the application
state categorizer 341c), or the priority or time criticality of the
new or changed data. The proxy server 325 can send the new or
changed data to the mobile device if the application is in the
foreground on the mobile device, or if the application is in the
foreground and in an active state interacting with a user on the
mobile device, and/or whether a user is waiting for a response that
would be provided in the new or changed data. The proxy server 325
(or traffic shaping engine 375) can send the new or changed data
that is of a high priority or is time critical.
[0392] Similarly, the proxy server 325 (or the traffic shaping
engine 375) can suppressing the sending of the new or changed data
if the application is in the background on the mobile device. The
proxy server 325 can also suppress the sending of the new or
changed data if the user is not waiting for the response provided
in the new or changed data; wherein the suppressing is performed by
a proxy server coupled to the host server and able to wirelessly
connect to the mobile device.
[0393] In general, if data, including new or change data is of a
low priority or is not time critical, the proxy server can waiting
to transfer the data until after a time period, or until there is
additional data to be sent (e.g. via the alignment module 378
and/or the batching module 377).
[0394] Client-Side Proxy
[0395] It is noted that, in the following, certain acronyms are
used for convenience. Their functional descriptions are introduced
throughout this disclosure as well as documents cited herein.
TABLE-US-00002 Acronym Meaning RR Responses to Requests D Delay RMP
Rapid Manual Poll RLP Rapid Long Poll RI Request Interval IT Idle
Time RT Response Time LP Long Poll
[0396] FIG. 4A depicts a block diagram illustrating another example
of client-side components in a distributed proxy and cache system,
further including an extended caching optimization engine.
[0397] FIG. 4B depicts a block diagram illustrating additional
components in the extended caching optimization engine shown in the
example of FIG. 4A.
[0398] It is noted that the functionalities of these modules
402-406 may be included, either partially or wholly, in the one or
more modules introduced in FIGS. 2A-2D. For example, the
optimization engine 401 can be merged with, work as a portion of,
communicate with, supplement, or cooperate with the
request/transaction manager 235, the caching policy manager 245,
the traffic shaping engine 255, the connection manager 265,
etc.
[0399] In accordance with one or more embodiments, the extended
caching optimization (ECO) engine 401 can detect or determine
various external, internal, or derived factors using various
detection, monitor, and pattern extraction modules 402-408.
Examples of these factors may include: (1) determination of user
inactivity (e.g., based on screen state, motion sensors, and so
forth; (2) determination of radio availability; (3) prediction of
user activity based on previous patterns; or (4) network health
state (e.g. congestion).
[0400] Based on these factors (and/or based on different setting
levels of the configurable ECO settings, as mentioned earlier), the
optimization engine 401 can determine (or take more chances in)
whether it should continue to rely on one or more particular data
stored in the local cache 285. In some embodiments, the
determination can be probabilistic instead of deterministic.
[0401] More specifically, to decide whether to refresh one or more
data in the cache 285, a cache freshness determination module 420
can determine based on at least one or more of (1) the ECO setting
level 410, (2) the actual freshness of the data, and (3) the device
specific information including, for example, whether the user is
using the device, how important the polling application is, whether
the device is low in battery or in a congested network, or whether
the user is driving, etc.
[0402] For purposes of discussion herein, "continuing to rely on
cache" means that the ECO algorithm (e.g., as implemented in the
optimization engine 401) continues to consider the data stored in
the cache are fresh and useable (a) when the determination of
freshness is unknown (e.g., where the server that is monitoring the
freshness is unable to retrieve the resource to determine the
freshness--but content may be fresh), or (b) when the ECO algorithm
knows that the resource is not fresh, but when situational factors
listed above allow relaxing the strict freshness requirements and
taking more chances as either user is not believed to need the
data, or network resources need to be preserved.
[0403] Furthermore, in some embodiments, the optimization engine
402 allows caching proxies (e.g., local proxy 105, FIG. 1A;
client-side proxy 175, FIG. 1E) to serve data that is not known to
be fresh (or in some cases, known to be not fresh). This technique
can be applied to (a) resources cached (e.g., in local cache 285)
by the polling logics (not shown in FIG. 4B for simplicity) and (b)
situations where user/network factors justify such behavior.
[0404] In one example, in order to determine the actual freshness
of a response (e.g., whether a data stored in local cache 285 is
fresh or stale), the optimization engine 401 compares its freshness
lifetime to its age to determine if the response has expired. These
may be implemented by incorporating protocols and calculations as
specified in the HTTP/1.1 family of standards. One specific example
of expiration calculation is specified in the section "13.2
Expiration Model" of the Request for Comment (RFC) #2616 or 2068
(also known as the "RFC 2616" or "RFC 2068"). The calculations of
age, freshness, and expiration can be employed by the optimization
engine 401 as a factor or a basis (in addition to the above
mentioned factors including, for example, user activity, radio
state, mobile application characteristics, network status, battery
status, display/backlit state, etc) in determining whether to poll
or refresh content stored in the local cache 285.
[0405] Example Functions of Extended Caching and Behaviors Under
Different Setting Levels
[0406] In general, extended caching (which can be also referred to
herein as aggressive caching) techniques enable a system (e.g.,
mobile device 101, 250 employing local proxy 105, 275, and/or host
server 111, 300 employing proxy server 113, 325 (see also FIG.
5A-5B)) to take more risk in keeping providing application with the
cached content in various situations described below.
[0407] Extended Caching: HTTP Non-Periodic Request
[0408] As part of normal operation, the Signaling Optimization
client (e.g., local proxy 105) caches resources on the device
(e.g., in cache 185) based on detecting a periodic application
request (such as via application behavior detector 236, described
above). By default, such cached resources are served from cache
only in response to application requests that match the observed
periodicity. Open Channel Signaling Optimization identifies the
opportunity to cache content based on observation of recurring
request-response patterns. That is to say, request periodicity
typically serves as a basis of request-response pattern
recognition. Both simple and complex periodicities are
detected.
[0409] However, the present embodiments recognize that applications
can make "out-of-order" requests, and therefore the present
embodiments include an HTTP Non-periodic-request option which
provides conditions upon which the client serves cached resources
in response to application requests that are non-periodic.
[0410] More specifically, when application makes a request
"out-of-order" in context of the current polling pattern, local
proxy 105 and/or proxy server 113 do not know whether the content
has changed or not; however, given that periodic polling is taking
place, the ECO engine 107 and/or ECO manager 115 can make the
proxies 105, 113 take the risk by not polling the third-party
servers 119 for new data/update. By default, local proxy 105 and/or
proxy server 113 take this risk when the screen is off or even when
screen is off but the radio is inactive as this is rather low
risk.
[0411] In some embodiments, configuration parameters can be adapted
to adjust this. An example of behaviors under different setting
levels the present embodiments perform is listed as follows:
TABLE-US-00003 Setting Behavior 0 Default behavior. Non-periodic
requests are not served from cache. 1 Non-periodic requests ARE
served from cache when the screen is not lit. 2 Non-periodic
requests ARE served from cache when the screen is not lit OR the
radio is inactive. 3 Non-periodic requests are always served from
cache.
[0412] For another example, the present embodiments recognize that
aggressive caching, especially responding to out-of-order requests,
can lead to application getting into a loop making requests
immediately when a response from cache is provided, and such loop
can go on infinitely and spiral out of control. As such, the
present disclosed embodiments are designed to safeguard against
such bad behavior
[0413] It is noted that, for convenience, a client (e.g., local
proxy 105, 175, 275) of the distributed caching system can be
referred to herein as an "open channel client", or "OC client."
Similarly, a server (e.g., host server 111, 100, 300 hosting proxy
server 113, 125, 325) of the distributed caching system can be
referred to herein as an "open channel server", or "OC server." The
client and the server individually or together implementing the
distributed caching techniques (including the Signal Optimization
and Extended Caching techniques) can be referred to as "open
channel" or "OC."
[0414] In some additional or alternative embodiments, as the
aggressive pattern recognition above leads to recognizing long
polls that just happen to be getting a response from the server
early (e.g. a new email) as regular polls (to which an OC client
responds immediately), it caused conditions where application makes
a request, the OC client responds immediately, and application
makes immediately a new request, and this loop continues. Without
aggressive caching, this would only take place for very limited
period of time, as the OC server (e.g., proxy server 113, 325),
while polling for the resource, recognizes that the origin server
(e.g., third-party server 119A) no longer provides this response,
sends an invalidate to the client. Or, if the recognized period is
very long and server is polling at such long interval (e.g. hours),
and has not observed the change yet, the requests from the
application would have been considered out-of-order and passed to
the network. However, now combined with aggressive caching, this
loop can continue for hours, until user turns the screen on, and
the invalidate is processed (or the request is considered
out-of-order).
[0415] Accordingly, the present embodiments include a safeguard
module 440 which includes safeguard functionalities to reduce or
solve this issue. Module 440 includes two submodules 440A and 440B
for detecting this looping behavior: [0416] Starting to increase
the response delay when immediate same requests are observed, to
avoid battery drain (Rapid-poll--Battery Drain Safeguard) [0417]
Deactivate the aggressive caching feature to process the invalidate
and deactivate serving out-of-order requests from cache
(Temporarily Deactivation)
[0418] Rapid-Poll--Battery Drain Safeguard:
[0419] One specific example is "Exchange Activesync," or "EAS."
Without current techniques, rapid polls and battery drain can be
caused by the distributed caching system. For example, when OC
would detect RMP (as the delays look more like network latency, and
the observed RIs are too large for an RLP), and OC starts serving
from cache immediately and EAS immediately polls again, thereby
getting the system in a loop and drains the battery.
[0420] Accordingly, the ECO engine 401 includes a Rapid-poll
Battery Drain Safeguard module 440A that provides the
aforementioned distributed caching system with a rapid poll
safeguard mechanism. Safeguard module 440 detects rapidly caching
Responses to Requests (RR) (from the application polling) and
starts delaying responses from the cache, improving the battery
life. This can be applicable to Rapid Manual Poll (RMP), Rapid Long
Poll (RLP) and Request Interval (RI) polling classes.
[0421] These classes are different patterns for pattern
recognition. RMP represents normal poll with request interval
shorter than a threshold (e.g., 60 seconds)), and RLP represents
long poll, with response delay shorter than a threshold (e.g., 60
seconds)). More details regarding these classes are further
introduced in, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No.
13/274,265, entitled "CACHING ADAPTED FOR MOBILE APPLICATION
BEHAVIOR AND NETWORK CONDITIONS," (Attorney Docket:
76443-8134.11501), filed Oct. 14, 2011, which is incorporated
herein by reference in its entirety.
[0422] Additionally, the necessity for safeguard behavior can be
detected based on specified condition, which can be described as "a
hit that causes new request".
[0423] For example, when arithmetic average of IT (idle time)
between two subsequent "hit" requests is smaller than certain
number (e.g., 15 sec), OC starts serving responses from the cache
with increased delay D with a default step specified in code (e.g.,
10 sec). OC tracks the application if the delayed response is
received successfully and the application did not close the socket
(e.g., no IN socket error and app works correctly). The IN SOCKET
closure typically happens when: a) the application crash; b) the
application don't accept the delay.
[0424] In case the socket was not closed, OC keeps increasing D
until max value (1.5*Dmin_for_LP) is reached. If the originally
detected pattern was RI and max D was reached, OC detects Long Poll
(LP) and updates information about the polling pattern on the
server. If the originally detected pattern was RMP or RLP, OC keeps
HITting with max D until pattern expiration. In case IN socket
error was observed, D is decreased with a step interval. If the
socket was closed two times in a row, OC cancels safeguard
mechanism for this poll. If the condition for safeguard mechanism
is met again, OC starts it over.
[0425] Temporary Deactivation:
[0426] the present embodiments further recognize cases where
aggressive caching led to OC Client ignoring the resource
invalidation from the OC Server, while the client application went
into a loop of requesting the resource continuously.
[0427] Accordingly, the ECO engine 401 includes a Temporary
Deactivation module 440B that detects this condition and can
temporarily deactivate aggressive caching for the given RR. Any
outstanding invalidate-with-cache or invalidate-without-cache
(e.g., invalidation commands sent from OC server invalidating data
stored in OC client's cache, and further indicating whether the OC
server has the new data) has to be applied immediately upon
entering the temporary deactivation mode. The aggressiveness should
be re-activated on a consequent startpoll.
[0428] In addition to process outstanding invalidates, out-of-order
requests are to be passed to the network after entering the
temporary deactivation mode. This, in some embodiments, can be
re-activated not only on a subsequent startpoll, but also if
safeguard is deactivated.
[0429] Extended Caching: Screen State Change
[0430] In some embodiments, in the optimization engine 401's
determination of whether the screen backlight state has changed, a
grace period is included that defines for how long the screen has
to be off before the state is considered to have changed. The grace
period setting can be a configurable parameter. For example, a
screen has to be off for X seconds before the state is considered
to have changed when the setting is at the lowest level, and for Y
seconds when the setting is at the highest level.
[0431] Extended Caching: Domain Name Service (DNS) Cache Entry (CE)
Expiration
[0432] The present embodiments recognize that, from a practical
standpoint, it is often hard to predict or know what application
issues a DNS request (e.g., especially when the request gets hidden
when traversing through a certain OS system such as Android), it
would be desirable not to have the DNS requests turn on the radio
while the firewall (e.g., as configured by OC) blocking the actual
application request, thereby resulting in little resource saving
because the radio is already turned up due to the DNS request.
[0433] For example, for some particular applications (e.g.,
WhatsApp messenger application by WhatsApp Inc.), even though the
WhatApp application may be blocked by personal firewall rule as
implemented by OC client, the application is still able to send DNS
request (e.g., to "c1.whatsapp.net") and blocked only when it was
trying to connect to that server.
[0434] Accordingly, the ECO engine 401 includes a DNS CE Expiration
module 450 that caches DNS requests more aggressively to prevent
unnecessary radio turn-ons triggered by those DNS requests. In
particular, besides being based on when an DNS Cache Lookup Query
(CLQ) is made to OC client and on a typical time-to-live (TTL)
parameter, the DNS CE Expiration module 450 can adjust the
expiration of DNS cache entries stored in the cache based on the
ECO level settings and/or device specific information.
[0435] An example policy setting for controlling the client's
behavior when invalidating DNS cache entries due to their
expiration is listed below.
TABLE-US-00004 Setting Behavior 0 regular behavior, DNS Cache Entry
expire on DNS CLQ when the TTL ends; 1 DNS Cache Entry expire on
DNS CLQ when the TTL ends and the screen backlight is on; 2 DNS
Cache Entry expire on DNS CLQ when the TTL ends and the screen
backlight is on and radio is up; 3 DNS Cache Entry never
expires.
[0436] Extended Caching: HTTP Invalidate-without-Cache
[0437] As part of normal operation, the Signaling Optimization
client (e.g., local proxy 105) caches resources on the device
(e.g., in cache 185) and requests the Signaling Optimization server
(e.g., proxy server 113) to poll to ensure freshness of a cached
resource. If the server determines that a cached resource has
changed, the server may send an "invalidate-without-cache" message
(e.g., via a corresponding module 560 in the optimization manager
501) to the client. The invalidate-without-cache message notifies
the client that the server is not able to verify the freshness of a
cached resource (invalidate) and that the client should contact the
application's origin server directly for the next update
("-without-cache"). The can happen when the OC server is not able
to retrieve any content from the original, third-party server, and
therefore it is hard to tell whether something has changed.
[0438] Accordingly, when server sends client an "invalidate w/o
cache" message, the present embodiments can take more risk in
keeping to provide application with the cached content.
[0439] More specifically, upon receiving an
invalidate-without-cache message, the default client behavior then
is to invalidate the cached resource immediately. The Extended HTTP
Invalidate-without-cache setting, as implemented by an
"invalidate-without-cache" module 460 that is included in the
optimization engine 401, provides options for the conditions upon
which the client invalidates the cached resource.
[0440] An example policy setting for controlling the client's
behavior when "invalidate-without-cache" the cache entries is
listed below.
TABLE-US-00005 Setting Behavior 0 Default behavior. Cache entries
are invalidated immediately upon receipt of cache-invalidate
message. 1 Cache entries based on periodic application polling are
invalidated on cache lookup query with screen lit. Cache entries
based on application long-polls are invalided on screen lit. 2
Cache entries based on periodic application polling are invalidated
on cache lookup query with screen lit AND radio up. Cache entries
based on application long-polls are invalided on screen lit AND
radio up. 3 Invalidate-without-cache messages are ignored
completely.
[0441] It is noted that, with "long polling" (see discussion
above), the client requests information from the server in a
similar way to a normal poll. However, if the server does not have
any information available for the client, instead of sending an
empty response, the server holds the request and waits for some
information to be available. Once the information becomes available
(or after a suitable timeout), a complete response is sent to the
client. The client will normally then immediately re-request
information from the server, so that the server will almost always
have an available waiting request that it can use to deliver data
in response to an event.
[0442] Extended Caching: HTTP Invalidate-with-Cache
[0443] As part of normal operation, the Signaling Optimization
client (e.g., local proxy 105) caches resources on the device and
requests the Signaling Optimization server (e.g., proxy server 113)
to poll to ensure freshness of a cached resource. If the Signaling
Optimization server determines that a cached resource has been
updated on the application server, the Signaling Optimization
server may cache a copy of the updated resource locally and send an
"invalidate-with-cache" message (e.g., via a corresponding module
570 in the optimization manager 501) to the client. The
invalidate-without-cache message notifies the client that the
specified resource has changed (invalidate) and that the Signaling
Optimization server has cached the changed resource
("-with-cache"). The Signaling Optimization client may choose to
contact the Signaling Optimization server directly to retrieve the
updated resource.
[0444] That is to say, when server sends "invalidate-with-cache"
messages, it means that content as definitely changed, and the
present embodiments can take more risk in keeping to provide
application with the cached content.
[0445] More specifically, the present embodiments can delay
processing of this invalidate when screen is off (but process when
screen is on, even if radio is inactive), despite of knowing that
the content has changed, because it is determined that user does
not need the content as the user is not actively using the device
(e.g., via device specific information module 430).
[0446] As such, upon receiving an invalidate-with-cache message,
the default client behavior is to retrieve the updated resource
entry from the origin server upon the first occurrence entry of
either the radio coming up or the application requesting the
resource. The Extended HTTP Invalidate-with-cache setting, as
implemented by an "invalidate-with-cache" module 470 that is
included in the optimization engine 401, provides options for the
conditions upon which the Signaling Optimization client retrieves
the remotely cached resource entry from the Signaling Optimization
server.
[0447] An example policy setting for controlling the client's
behavior when "invalidate-with-cache" the cache entries is listed
below.
TABLE-US-00006 Setting Behavior 0 Default behavior. Remote cache
entry is retrieved on either radio up OR application 1 Remote cache
resources based on periodic application polling are retrieved on
cache lookup query and screen lit. Remote cache resources based on
application long-polls are retrieved on screen lit. 2 Remote cache
resources based on periodic application polling are retrieved on
cache lookup query and screen lit and radio up. Remote cache
resources based on application long-polls are retrieved on screen
lit and radio up. 3 Completely ignore invalidates.
[0448] In some embodiments, all the ignored invalidates can be
picked up as soon as the backlight turns on. Also, with the highest
aggressiveness level, some embodiments can include an extra
subscription state "already invalidated" which would be treated as
"polling" while the aggressiveness level is at highest, but would
lead to an immediate invalidate on a cache lookup query (CLQ)
otherwise.
[0449] An `extra subscription state` represents a subscription that
relates to a cached entry and subscription by the client to server
to poll for that cached entry to monitor its freshness. It is the
new subscription type that tells that the cache entry has been
invalidated, but the invalidate has not been processed yet due to
the aggressiveness setting.
[0450] Irregular Polling Pattern Recognition and Caching
[0451] The present embodiments recognize that some applications are
to poll in a non-periodic fashion, which can lead to OC client
occasionally missing the requests and re-detecting increasing RI
patterns with shorter RI. Once the poll invalidates, OC client
tries re-detecting the pattern based on the recent request history,
which leads to the same story repeating over and over.
[0452] Accordingly, in order to improve efficiency (among other
purposes), an Irregular Polling Pattern Recognition and Caching
(IPPRC) module 480 is included to persist the information on the
shortest observed RI across the invalidates. The IPPRC module 480
can activate under circumstances of upgrading an existing
increasing pattern to another increasing, with a shorter RI.
[0453] It is noted that, as previously mentioned, the Irregular
Polling Pattern Recognition and Caching module 480 can be working
as a part of the optimization 401, can be working as a supplemental
component of application behavior detector 236 (and/or submodules
thereof such as the pattern detector 237), and/or can be combined,
merged, or separated from other suitable modules/components in the
local proxy 275.
[0454] More specifically, as aggressive caching typically only
applies to requests that are already being cached, The IPPRC module
480 can detect patterns in any occasion where multiple requests
occur, even if the pattern would violate the previous recognition
rules where period 2 should be same or longer than period 1.
[0455] In addition, IPPRC module 480's can provide functionality
which relates to "semi-long polls", which is a pattern that are
identified where the pattern fluctuates between normal polls and
long polls. Typically, this would not be recognized as a pattern at
all. With IPPRC module 480, it would get recognized as a long
poll.
[0456] For one example, if the long poll delay parameter sent by
Exchange Activesync (EAS) doesn't change (and get thus normalized
out), but the server just decides to respond sooner every second
time, IPPRC module 480 could start caching at the longer interval,
as the application should wait for that time, and it doesn't matter
if the server responds faster, because the application would just
issue a new poll and continue. In some embodiments, the IPPRC
module 440 use max response delay from event history to detect LP
pattern. In case of semi-long poll pattern behavior OC will start
polling after second long D in history
[0457] To further demonstrate how the functionality works, example
cases are provided below:
[0458] Test Cases
[0459] In general, to perform a test case, (1) OC client (e.g., in
forms of software) must be existing (e.g., by installation) on the
device; (2) a test tool (e.g., a proprietary test tool "7TestTool,"
as provided by SEVEN Networks, Inc.) should be installed; (3) A
test resource is needed for this test case that returns the same
response for all requests.
[0460] In general, to verify correct results, these steps should be
performed: (1) Open 7TestTool application and load the test suite;
(2) Start periodic request; and (3) Observe client log.
[0461] The following are the example test cases and the
responses.
TABLE-US-00007 Summary Pattern/Delay Result Regression Test Cases
Detection of 1. Install OC client 1. After 3rd request Rapid Manual
Poll should be Rapid Manual 2. Install latest available detected.
Poll 7TestTool. 2. After receiving of 3rd response RR should be 3.
A test resource is activated, needed for this test case polling
should start. that returns the same 3. 4th request should be HITed
with delay 0. response for all requests. Pattern [0, 35, 35, 35]
Detection of 1. Install OC client 1. After 3rd request Rapid Long
Poll should be Rapid Long 2. Install latest available detected.
Poll 7TestTool. 2. After receiving of 3rd response RR should be 3.
A test resource is activated, needed for this test case polling
should start. that returns the same 3. 4th request should be HITed
with delay 20. response for all requests. Pattern [0, 35, 35, 35]
Delay [24, 21, 21, 21] Detection of 1. Install OC client 1. After
2nd request Long poll pattern should be Long Poll 2. Install latest
available detected with next value getRecentTO: recent TO =
7TestTool. 68 3. A test resource is 2. After receiving of 2nd
response RR should be needed for this test case activated, that
returns the same polling should start. response for all requests.
3. 3th request should be HITed with delay 68. Pattern [0, 70, 70]
Delay [68, 68, 68] Detection of RI 1. Install OC client 1. After
3rd request RI based pattern should be with delay 2. Install latest
available detected. 7TestTool. 2. After receiving of 3rd response
RR should be 3. A test resource is activated, needed for this test
case polling should start. that returns the same 3. 4th request
should be HITed with delay 0. response for all requests. Pattern
[0, 70, 70, 70] Delay [20, 10, 31] Detection of RI 1. Install OC
client 1. After 3rd request RI based polling should be based
polling 2. Install latest available detected. 7TestTool. 2. After
receiving of 3rd response RR should be 3. A test resource is
activated, needed for this test case polling should start. that
returns the same 3. 4th request should be HITed with delay 0.
response for all requests. Pattern [0, 65, 65, 65] OC should 1.
Install OC client 1. After 2nd request Long poll should be
detected. redetect RR 2. Install latest available 2. Response delay
of 2nd response with value 11 from Long Poll 7TestTool. doesn't
match the current pattern. to RI 3. A test resource is 3. 3rd
request should be sent to TC for server side needed for this test
case revalidation. After 3rd request RI based polling that returns
the same detected with interval: 68. response for all requests. 4.
After receiving of 3rd response RR should be Pattern [0, 69, 71,
70, 70] activated, Delay [66, 11, 3, 0] polling should start. 5.
4th response should be HITed with delay 0. OC shouldn't 1. Install
OC client 1. After 3rd request RI based polling should be redetect
RR 2. Install latest available detected. from Long Poll 7TestTool.
2. After receiving of 3rd response RR should be to RI 3. A test
resource is activated, needed for this test case polling should
start. that returns the same 3. 4th request should be HITed with
delay 0. response for all requests. Pattern [0, 65, 65, 65] Delay
[35, 35, 34] OC should 1. Install OC client 1. After 3rd request
Rapid Long Poll should be redetect RR 2. Install latest available
detected. from Rapid 7TestTool. 2. After receiving of 3rd response
RR should be Long Poll to 3. A test resource is activated, Long
Poll needed for this test case polling should start. that returns
the same 3. 4th request should be HITed with delay 25. response for
all requests. 4. 5th request should be HITed with delay 25. Pattern
5. Before 6th request [0, 35, 35, 35, 65, 65, 65, 65]
INVALIDATE_WO_CACHE should be received. Delay 6. 6th request should
be sent to TC for server side [21, 21, 25, 25, 65, 65, 65, 65]
revalidation. RI should be detected with interval: 70. 7. 7th
request should be sent to TC for server side revalidation. Long
Poll should be detected. 8. After 7th response polling should
start. 9. 8th request should be HITed. Functional Test Cases OC
behavior 1. Install OC client 1. After 3rd request RI should be
detected with for requests 2. Install latest available period 47.
with pattern 7TestTool. 2. After receiving of 3rd response RR
should be [0, 65, 100, 35, 45, 3. A test resource is activated, 65,
70, 80, 45, 67, 65, needed for this test case polling should start
with interval 60. 100, 35, 45, 65, 70, that returns the same 3. 4th
request should be sent to TC for server side 80, 45, 67] response
for all requests. revalidation. Pattern 4. 5th request should be
HITed. [0, 65, 100, 35, 45, 65, 70, 80, 5. 6th request should be
HITed. 45, 67, 65, 100, 35, 45, 65, 70, 6. 7th request should be
HITed. 80, 45, 67] 7. 8th request should be HITed. 8. 9th request
should be sent to TC for server side revalidation. 9. 10th request
should be HITed. 10. 11th request should be HITed. 11. 12th request
should be HITed. 12. 13th request should be sent to TC for server
side revalidation. 13. 14th-17th request should be HITed. 14. 18th
request should be sent to TC for server side revalidation. 15. 19th
request should be HITed. OC behavior 1. Install OC client 1. After
3rd request RI should be detected with for requests 2. Install
latest available period 70. with pattern 7TestTool. 2. After
receiving of 3rd response RR should be [0, 70, 2, 100, 35, 45, 3. A
test resource is activated, 10, 45, 35, 25, 67, needed for this
test case polling should start with interval 70. 70, 2, 100, 35,
45, that returns the same 3. 4th request should be HITed. 10, 45,
35, 25, 67] response for all requests. 4. 5th request should be
sent to TC for server side Pattern revalidation. Polling should
start with new interval [0, 70, 2, 100, 35, 45, 10, 45, 35, 60. 25,
67, 70, 2, 100, 35, 45, 10, 5. 6th request should be HITed. 45, 35,
25, 67] 6. 7th request should be HITed due to it were sent in short
period of time. 7. 8th request should be HITed. 8. 9th request
should be sent to TC for server side revalidation, temporary RMP
should start. 9. 10th request should be HITed. 10. 11th request
should be HITed. 11. 12th request should be HITed. 12. 13th request
should be HITed due to it were sent in short period of time. 13.
14th request should be HITed. 14. 15th request should be sent to TC
for server side revalidation. RMP expired. 15. 16th request should
be HITed. 16. 17th request should be HITed due to it were sent in
short period of time. 17. 18th request should be HITed. 18. 19th
request should be sent to TC for server side revalidation.
Temporary RMP should start. 19. 20th request should be HITed. 20.
21 th request should be HITed. OC behavior 1. Install OC client 1.
After 3rd request RI should be detected with for requests 2.
Install latest available period 132. with pattern 7TestTool. 2.
After receiving of 3rd response RR should be [0, 155, 200, 80, 80,
3. A test resource is activated, polling should start. 200, 70, 70,
153, 13, needed for this test case 3. 4th request should be HITed.
11, 170, 202, 155, that returns the same 4. 5th request should be
sent to TC for server side 200, 80, 80, 200, response for all
requests. revalidation. Polling should start with new interval 70,
70, 153, 13, 11, Pattern 60. 170, 202] [0, 155, 200, 80, 80, 200,
70, 5. 6th request should be HITed. 70, 153, 13, 11, 170, 202, 155,
6. 7th request should be HITed. 200, 80, 80, 200, 70, 70, 153, 7.
8th request should be HITed. 13, 11, 170, 202] 8. 9th request
should be HITed. 9. 10th request should be HITed due to it were
sent in short period of time. 10. 11th request should be HITed due
to it were sent in short period of time. 11. 12th-21th requests
should be HITed. 12. 22th-23th requests should be HITed due to it
were sent in short period of time. 13. 24th-25th requests should be
HITed. OC behavior 1. Install OC client 1. After 3rd request RI
should be detected with for requests 2. Install latest available
period 313. with pattern 7TestTool. 2. After receiving of 3rd
response RR should be [0, 350, 325, 400, 323, 3. A test resource is
activated, polling should start. 345, 360, 300, needed for this
test case 3. 4th-19th requests should be HITed. 398, 378, 350, 325,
that returns the same 400, 323, 345, 360, response for all
requests. 300, 398, 378] Pattern [0, 350, 325, 400, 323, 345, 360,
300, 398, 378, 350, 325, 400, 323, 345, 360, 300, 398, 378] OC
behavior 1. Install OC client 1. After 3rd request RI should be
detected with for requests 2. Install latest available period 295.
with pattern 7TestTool. 2. After receiving of 3rd response RR
should be [0, 300, 310, 296, 303, 3. A test resource is activated,
polling should start. 299, 300, 308, needed for this test case 3.
4th-16th requests should be HITed. 307, 301, 296, 299, that returns
the same 305, 301, 294, 302] response for all requests. Pattern [0,
300, 310, 296, 303, 299, 300, 308, 307, 301, 296, 299, 305, 301,
294, 302]
[0462] The CLQ is a client-internal interface to check from the
cache that what is the status of the subscription--to understand
whether we have response for a given request in the cache, and is
it ok to serve it to the application.
[0463] Heterogenous Cache Service and Categorization of
Responses
[0464] The present embodiments recognize that certain
requests/responses can be categorized (e.g., as "1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2"
and "0-0-0-0-1-0-0-0" types), and they can be served with the
response from cache based on their categorizations, even if polling
is not ongoing, based on: [0465] for one type (e.g.,
"1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2") return the latest response from the network,
[0466] for another type (e.g., "0-0-0-0-1-0-0-0") return the latest
cached result.
[0467] Accordingly, the optimization engine 401 can include a
heterogenous cache service module 490 that expand the scope of
aggressive caching to situations where caching of a specific
response has not taken place. For example, heterogenous cache
service module 490 can categorize applications (e.g., based on
their requests, and responses to those requests from corresponding
third-party servers) and the data (e.g., responses) currently
stored in the cache. Heterogenous cache service module 490 can
determine if one cached response can be used to serve another
application's request. As used herein, the term "heterogenous"
means "out of its origin," and in context of distributed caching
system, it means that the cached response being served to "an
application that is out of its original application" in addition to
or in lieu of its own, original application; for example, a cached
response for Application-A being served to Application B (e.g.,
providing that they are determined to be in the same category and
thus suitable for this technique).
[0468] More specifically, according to some embodiments,
heterogenous cache service module 490 can identify content that
could be served from cache during the aggressive caching, even if
it is not being cached at the moment. In some embodiments,
heterogenous cache service module 490 can store a previously cached
content, known now to be stale, to be served at a later date. Some
embodiments of heterogenous cache service module 490 can identify
requests that are substantially the same, whose responses could be
used to serve another request. Further, heterogenous cache service
module 490 can identify request types for which we can safely serve
the previous response before aggressive caching started. In one
embodiment, heterogenous cache service module 490 may include
submodules, such as a cache categorization module 490A for
categorizing cached data and an application categorization module
490B for categorizing applications.
[0469] Delaying Long Poll Responses
[0470] The present embodiments recognize that it can be beneficial
to delay delivery of long poll responses from the network to slow
down interaction between the application and the content server.
The present embodiments further recognize that, even without
caching, it is possible to slow down the interaction between
application and server by holding on to a response from the
server--we can know how long the application waits either by
observing past pattern, or by reading the information from the
request that the application makes--as it does convey this
information to the server, so that the server knows when it must
respond to not time out the application. This technique can serve,
for example, as an addition or an alternative to aggressive
caching.
[0471] Accordingly, in some embodiments, a long poll response delay
module 495 can identify the longest possible delay by using a
protocol parsing module 495A to parse the protocol (the request
typically has the long poll delay the application is willing to
wait). In some embodiments, long poll response delay module 495 can
identify the longest possible delay by using a previous
transactions observing module 495B to observe the previous
transactions to find the longest successful long poll and using its
length to imply the longest possible delay.
[0472] Then, long poll response delay module 495 can tune shorter
this delay based on the situation to provide different levels of
aggressiveness. Similarly, the aforementioned aggressive caching
techniques can be tuned less aggressive by defining maximum period
of postponing processing of an invalidation, or observing activity
in some of the output interfaces (such as a notification LED or
sound system) when new content is delivered.
[0473] It is worth noting that the present embodiments acknowledge
that there may be little value in delaying long poll responses when
aggressive caching is in use--as aggressive caching does capture
almost all of the benefits already. Thus, when the aggressive
caching is operational, long poll response delay module 495 can
function as a "friendlier" alternative option for aggressive
caching of long polls--there delaying the responses would provide a
solution where new data from long polls gets delayed less than with
aggressive caching. Similar effect could be achieved by introducing
some maximum delay to processing the invalidation.
[0474] Nonetheless, when the screen is ON and aggressive caching is
not operational, delaying the long poll responses (and serving
cached responses) would provide significant optimization
improvements. However, this would be directly visible to the user
as well, as the user is actively using the device, but new data is
delayed. In some embodiments, this technique can be implemented as
a part of congestion management (as compared to being used as a
global optimization policy).
[0475] As such, this technique can be seen as extending aggressive
caching to when the screen is on. By serving user stale data from
cache, carriers can benefit from this technique as it provides a
way to alleviate congestion and keep as many users as satisfactory
as possible.
[0476] As mentioned, long poll response delay module 495 can go
hand in hand with congestion management offering and it could be
offered as one option for managing congestion with other options
being aggressive caching and maybe going as far as blocking
apps.
[0477] Note that, according to the embodiments disclosed herein,
this technique applies delaying on client only; it does not
consider delaying at the server (e.g., proxy-server) which although
valid and probably beneficial would need to have additional
considerations, as the server doesn't know whether the user is
active or not.
[0478] Server-Side Proxy
[0479] FIG. 5A depicts a block diagram illustrating an example of
server-side components in a distributed proxy and cache system,
further including an extended caching optimization manager.
[0480] FIG. 5B depicts a block diagram illustrating additional
components in the extended caching optimization manager shown in
the example of FIG. 5A.
[0481] Some embodiments of the ECO manager, such as optimization
manager 501 as illustrated in FIG. 5B, can function as a
complementary part to the ECO engine 401 of FIG. 4A. For example,
the optimization manager 501 can include a device specific
information module 530 to receive information (e.g., as gathered by
modules 402-406 of FIG. 4B) that are specific to the device, and
the cache freshness determination module 520 can decide whether to
refresh cache (e.g., from a third-party server) and/or whether to
feed a certain data to the client-proxy based on device specific
information, the actual freshness of the data in the cache 335, and
the ECO setting level 510, which can be a uniform setting across
all clients served by the server-proxy, or can be device specific,
application specific, user specific, group specific, or any
suitable combination of above.
[0482] Alternatively, the optimization manager 501 can have similar
modules as the optimization engine 401 and functions in a similar
way as described above with respect to FIGS. 4A-4B. In some
embodiments, ECO manager 501 may include a safeguard module 540
which includes safeguard functionalities and a DNS CE expiration
module 550 that caches DNS requests more aggressively to prevent
unnecessary radio power-ups and activations triggered by those DNS
requests.
[0483] FIG. 6 shows a diagrammatic representation of a machine in
the example form of a computer system within which a set of
instructions, for causing the machine to perform any one or more of
the methodologies discussed herein, may be executed.
[0484] In the example of FIG. 6, the computer system 600 includes a
processor 602, memory 604, non-volatile memory 606, and a network
interface device 608 for communicating with a network 610. Various
common components (e.g., cache memory) are omitted for illustrative
simplicity. The computer system 600 is intended to illustrate a
hardware device on which any of the components depicted and/or
described in this specification can be implemented. The computer
system 600 can be of any applicable known or convenient type. The
components of the computer system 600 can be coupled together via a
bus or through some other known or convenient device.
[0485] Processor 602 may be, for example, a conventional
microprocessor such as an Intel Pentium microprocessor or Motorola
power PC microprocessor. One of skill in the relevant art will
recognize that the terms "machine-readable (storage) medium" or
"computer-readable (storage) medium" include any type of device
that is accessible by the processor.
[0486] Memory 604 may be coupled to processor 602 by, for example,
a bus 612. Memory 604 can include, by way of example but not
limitation, random access memory (RAM), such as dynamic RAM (DRAM)
and static RAM (SRAM). The memory can be local, remote, or
distributed.
[0487] Bus 612 may also couple processor 602 to non-volatile memory
606 and to a drive unit 614. Non-volatile memory 606 may be, for
example, a magnetic floppy or hard disk, a magnetic-optical disk,
an optical disk, a read-only memory (ROM), such as a CD-ROM, EPROM,
or EEPROM, a magnetic or optical card, or another form of storage
for large amounts of data. Some of this data is often written, by a
direct memory access process, into memory during execution of
software in the computer 600. The non-volatile storage can be
local, remote, or distributed. Non-volatile memory 606 is optional
because systems can be created with all applicable data available
in memory. A typical computer system may include at least a
processor, memory, and a device (e.g., a bus) coupling the memory
to the processor.
[0488] Software is typically stored in the non-volatile memory
and/or the drive unit, such as in a machine-readable (storage)
medium 616. Software usually includes a set of instructions 618
that cause processor 602 to perform specific tasks. Indeed, for
large programs, it may not even be possible to store the entire
program in the memory. Nevertheless, it should be understood that
for software to run, if necessary, it is moved to a computer
readable location appropriate for processing, and for illustrative
purposes, that location is referred to as "memory". Thus,
instructions 618 may be moved into instruction memory 620 within
processor 602, instruction memory 622 within main memory 604, or
both. Even when software is moved to the memory for execution, the
processor typically make use of hardware registers to store values
associated with the software, and local cache that, ideally, serves
to speed up execution. As used herein, a software program is
assumed to be stored at any known or convenient location (from
non-volatile storage to hardware registers) when the software
program is referred to as "implemented in a computer-readable
medium." A processor is considered to be "configured to execute a
program" when at least one value associated with the program is
stored in a register readable by the processor.
[0489] The bus also couples processor 602 to network interface
device 608. The interface can include one or more of a modem or
network interface. It will be appreciated that a modem or network
interface can be considered to be part of the computer system. The
interface can include an analog modem, isdn modem, cable modem,
token ring interface, satellite transmission interface (e.g.
"direct PC"), or other interfaces for coupling a computer system to
other computer systems. The interface can include one or more input
and/or output devices. The I/O devices can include, by way of
example but not limitation, a keyboard, a mouse or other pointing
device, disk drives, printers, a scanner, and other input and/or
output devices, including a display device. The display device can
include, by way of example but not limitation, a cathode ray tube
(CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), or some other applicable known
or convenient display device. For simplicity, it is assumed that
controllers of any devices not depicted in the example of FIG. 8
reside in the interface.
[0490] In one embodiment, computer system 600 may include one or
more of the following: a video display 624 (e.g., a screen or
monitor), an alphanumeric input device 626 (e.g., a keyboard), a
cursor control device 628 (e.g., a mouse or touch screen), and a
signal generator 630 (e.g., a speaker or audio output).
[0491] In operation, the computer system 600 can be controlled by
operating system software that includes a file management system,
such as a disk operating system. One example of operating system
software with associated file management system software is the
family of operating systems known as Windows.RTM. from Microsoft
Corporation of Redmond, Wash., and their associated file management
systems. Another example of operating system software with its
associated file management system software is the Linux operating
system and its associated file management system. The file
management system is typically stored in the non-volatile memory
and/or drive unit and causes the processor to execute the various
acts required by the operating system to input and output data and
to store data in the memory, including storing files on the
non-volatile memory and/or drive unit.
[0492] Some portions of the detailed description may be presented
in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations
on data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic
descriptions and representations are the means used by those
skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the
substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm
is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence
of operations leading to a desired result. The operations are those
requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually,
though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of
electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored,
transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has
proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common
usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements,
symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like.
[0493] It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and
similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical
quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these
quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from
the following discussion, it is appreciated that throughout the
description, discussions utilizing terms such as "processing" or
"computing" or "calculating" or "determining" or "displaying" or
the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system,
or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and
transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities
within the computer system's registers and memories into other data
similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer
system memories or registers or other such information storage,
transmission or display devices.
[0494] The algorithms and displays presented herein are not
inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus.
Various general purpose systems may be used with programs in
accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to
construct more specialized apparatus to perform the methods of some
embodiments. The required structure for a variety of these systems
will appear from the description below. In addition, the techniques
are not described with reference to any particular programming
language, and various embodiments may thus be implemented using a
variety of programming languages.
[0495] In alternative embodiments, the machine operates as a
standalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to other
machines. In a networked deployment, the machine may operate in the
capacity of a server or a client machine in a client-server network
environment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (or
distributed) network environment.
[0496] The machine may be a server computer, a client computer, a
personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a laptop computer, a set-top
box (STB), a personal digital assistant (PDA), a cellular
telephone, an iPhone, a Blackberry, a processor, a telephone, a web
appliance, a network router, switch or bridge, or any machine
capable of executing a set of instructions (sequential or
otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine.
[0497] While the machine-readable medium or machine-readable
storage medium is shown in an exemplary embodiment to be a single
medium, the term "machine-readable medium" and "machine-readable
storage medium" should be taken to include a single medium or
multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or
associated caches and servers) that store the one or more sets of
instructions. The term "machine-readable medium" and
"machine-readable storage medium" shall also be taken to include
any medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set
of instructions for execution by the machine and that cause the
machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies of the
presently disclosed technique and innovation.
[0498] In general, the routines executed to implement the
embodiments of the disclosure, may be implemented as part of an
operating system or a specific application, component, program,
object, module or sequence of instructions referred to as "computer
programs." The computer programs typically comprise one or more
instructions set at various times in various memory and storage
devices in a computer, and that, when read and executed by one or
more processing units or processors in a computer, cause the
computer to perform operations to execute elements involving the
various aspects of the disclosure.
[0499] Moreover, while embodiments have been described in the
context of fully functioning computers and computer systems, those
skilled in the art will appreciate that the various embodiments are
capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of
forms, and that the disclosure applies equally regardless of the
particular type of machine or computer-readable media used to
actually effect the distribution.
[0500] Further examples of machine-readable storage media,
machine-readable media, or computer-readable (storage) media
include but are not limited to recordable type media such as
volatile and non-volatile memory devices, floppy and other
removable disks, hard disk drives, optical disks (e.g., Compact
Disk Read-Only Memory (CD ROMS), Digital Versatile Disks, (DVDs),
etc.), among others, and transmission type media such as digital
and analog communication links.
[0501] FIG. 7 depicts a flowchart illustrating an exemplary process
for distributed caching of information using extended caching
optimization according to an embodiment of the subject matter
described herein. In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 7, the
method includes, at a mobile device for operating in a wireless
network, the device including a local proxy for monitoring requests
issued from an application located within the device to an external
entity not located within the device and for storing, in a local
cache, responses to the monitored requests received from the
external entity, identifying a request as one that meets a first
criterion for optimization (step 700).
[0502] In response to identifying the request as one that meets a
first criterion for optimization, an extended caching optimization
is applied (step 702). Applying an extended caching optimization
includes preventing the identified request from being transmitted
to the external entity and providing a response to the identified
request from the local cache.
[0503] A proxy server located external to the mobile device and for
receiving request from the mobile device, forwarding the requests
to content or service providers, receiving from the content or
service providers responses to the forwarded requests, and
providing responses back to the mobile device stores, in a server
cache, copies of the forwarded requests and copies of the received
responses to the forwarded requests. The proxy server identifies a
request/response pair as one that meets a second criterion for
optimization, and, in response to identifying the request/response
pair as one that meets a second criterion for optimization,
prevents the response from being provided back to the mobile device
(step 704).
[0504] Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, throughout
the description and the claims, the words "comprise," "comprising,"
and the like are to be construed in an inclusive sense, as opposed
to an exclusive or exhaustive sense; that is to say, in the sense
of "including, but not limited to." As used herein, the terms
"connected," "coupled," or any variant thereof, means any
connection or coupling, either direct or indirect, between two or
more elements; the coupling of connection between the elements can
be physical, logical, or a combination thereof. Additionally, the
words "herein," "above," "below," and words of similar import, when
used in this application, shall refer to this application as a
whole and not to any particular portions of this application. Where
the context permits, words in the above Detailed Description using
the singular or plural number may also include the plural or
singular number respectively. The word "or," in reference to a list
of two or more items, covers all of the following interpretations
of the word: any of the items in the list, all of the items in the
list, and any combination of the items in the list.
[0505] The above detailed description of embodiments of the
disclosure is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the
teachings to the precise form disclosed above. While specific
embodiments of, and examples for, the disclosure are described
above for illustrative purposes, various equivalent modifications
are possible within the scope of the disclosure, as those skilled
in the relevant art will recognize. For example, while processes or
blocks are presented in a given order, alternative embodiments may
perform routines having steps, or employ systems having blocks, in
a different order, and some processes or blocks may be deleted,
moved, added, subdivided, combined, and/or modified to provide
alternative or subcombinations. Each of these processes or blocks
may be implemented in a variety of different ways. Also, while
processes or blocks are at times shown as being performed in
series, these processes or blocks may instead be performed in
parallel, or may be performed at different times. Further any
specific numbers noted herein are only examples: alternative
implementations may employ differing values or ranges.
[0506] The teachings of the disclosure provided herein can be
applied to other systems, not necessarily the system described
above. The elements and acts of the various embodiments described
above can be combined to provide further embodiments.
[0507] Any patents and applications and other references noted
above, including any that may be listed in accompanying filing
papers, are incorporated herein by reference. Aspects of the
disclosure can be modified, if necessary, to employ the systems,
functions, and concepts of the various references described above
to provide yet further embodiments of the disclosure.
[0508] These and other changes can be made to the disclosure in
light of the above Detailed Description. While the above
description describes certain embodiments of the disclosure, and
describes the best mode contemplated, no matter how detailed the
above appears in text, the teachings can be practiced in many ways.
Details of the system may vary considerably in its implementation
details, while still being encompassed by the subject matter
disclosed herein. As noted above, particular terminology used when
describing certain features or aspects of the disclosure should not
be taken to imply that the terminology is being redefined herein to
be restricted to any specific characteristics, features, or aspects
of the disclosure with which that terminology is associated. In
general, the terms used in the following claims should not be
construed to limit the disclosure to the specific embodiments
disclosed in the specification, unless the above Detailed
Description section explicitly defines such terms. Accordingly, the
actual scope of the disclosure encompasses not only the disclosed
embodiments, but also all equivalent ways of practicing or
implementing the disclosure under the claims.
[0509] While certain aspects of the disclosure are presented below
in certain claim forms, the inventors contemplate the various
aspects of the disclosure in any number of claim forms. For
example, while only one aspect of the disclosure is recited as a
means-plus-function claim under 35 U.S.C. .sctn.112, 6, other
aspects may likewise be embodied as a means-plus-function claim, or
in other forms, such as being embodied in a computer-readable
medium. (Any claim intended to be treated under 35 U.S.C.
.sctn.112, 6 begins with the words "means for".) Accordingly, the
applicant reserves the right to add additional claims after filing
the application to pursue such additional claim forms for other
aspects of the disclosure.
EMBODIMENTS
[0510] The subject matter disclosed herein includes, but is not
limited to, the following embodiments:
[0511] 1. A method for distributed caching of information using
extended caching optimization, the method including, at a mobile
device for operating in a wireless network, the device including a
local proxy for monitoring requests issued from an application
located within the device to an external entity not located within
the device and for storing, in a local cache, responses to the
monitored requests received from the external entity, identifying a
request as one that meets a first criterion for optimization, and,
in response to such identification, applying an extended caching
optimization. Applying an extended caching optimization includes
preventing the identified request from being transmitted to the
external entity, and providing a response to the identified request
from the local cache.
[0512] 2. The method of embodiment 1 where the first criterion for
optimization includes a determination that the request matches an
observed periodicity.
[0513] 3. The method of embodiment 2 where the observed periodicity
comprises a simple periodicity or a complex periodicity.
[0514] 4. The method of embodiment 1 where, responsive to a
detection by the local proxy of a repetition of a request-response
interaction between the application and the local proxy that
exceeds a threshold rate, applying a traffic calming technique to
signaling messages related to the application.
[0515] 5. The method of embodiment 4 where applying the traffic
calming technique includes increasing, by the local proxy, a delay
between receiving the request from the application and providing
the cached response to the application.
[0516] 6. The method of embodiment 4 including, responsive to a
detection that the application terminates a connection to the
external entity as a result of an increased delay between sending
the request and receiving the cached response, decreasing, by the
local proxy, the delay between receiving a request from the
application and providing a cached response to the application.
[0517] 7. The method of embodiment 6 including, responsive to a
determination that the application has terminated the connection to
the external entity more than a threshold number of times,
terminating the traffic calming technique being applied to
signaling messages related to the application.
[0518] 8. The method of embodiment 1 where, responsive to a
detection by the local proxy that the application is requesting
content that has been invalidated, terminating the extended caching
optimization for that application.
[0519] 9. The method of embodiment 4 including maintaining, by the
local proxy, a value of the shortest request interval (RI) between
successive requests from the application.
[0520] 10. The method of embodiment 9 including using the
maintained value of the shortest RI to identify a non-periodic
request as being associated with the application.
[0521] 11. The method of embodiment 4 including maintaining, by the
local proxy, a value of the longest response delay (RD) observed
between a request from the application and a response to the
request from the external entity.
[0522] 12. The method of embodiment 11 including using the
maintained value of the longest RD to identify a request/response
interaction as a long-poll interaction for the application.
[0523] 13. The method of embodiment 12 including using the
maintained value of the longest RD as the polling frequency during
extended caching optimization for the application.
[0524] 14. The method of embodiment 1 where the first criterion for
optimization includes a determination that the request occurred
while the mobile device is in a target state.
[0525] 15. The method of embodiment 14 where the target state
includes a display of the mobile device is not lit, a radio circuit
of the mobile device is not active, a power consumption of the
mobile device is below a threshold value, and/or an absence of user
activity for longer than a threshold period.
[0526] 16. The method of embodiment 14 where the first criterion
for optimization is selectable by a user of the mobile device.
[0527] 17. The method of embodiment 1 where the identified request
comprises a domain name service (DNS) request.
[0528] 18. The method of embodiment 17 including not terminating
the extended caching optimization of the DNS request until after a
threshold time to live (TTL).
[0529] 19. The method of embodiment 17 including not terminating
the extended caching optimization of the DNS request until after a
threshold time to live (TTL) and a determination that the screen is
lit.
[0530] 20. The method of embodiment 17 including not terminating
the extended caching optimization of the DNS request until after a
threshold time to live (TTL), a determination that the screen is
lit, and a determination that the radio transceiver is powered on
or activated.
[0531] 21. The method of embodiment 1 where, responsive to a
detection by the local proxy of a repetition of a request-response
interaction between the application and the local proxy that
exceeds a threshold rate, applying a traffic calming technique to
signaling messages related to the application.
[0532] 22. The method of embodiment 1 where identification of a
request as one that meets a first criterion for optimization
includes identification based on a characteristic of the request, a
characteristic of the requested data, and/or a characteristic of
the application making the request.
[0533] 23. The method of embodiment 1 including, at a proxy server
located external to the mobile device and for receiving requests
from the mobile device, forwarding the requests to content or
service providers, receiving from the content or service providers
responses to the forwarded requests, and providing the responses
back to the mobile device: storing, in a server cache, copies of
the forwarded requests, storing, in the server cache, copies of the
received responses to the forwarded requests, and responsive to
identifying a request/response pair as one that meets a second
criterion for optimization, preventing the response from being
provided back to the mobile device.
[0534] 24. The method of embodiment 23 where, for each
request/response pair identified as meeting a criterion for
optimization, the method includes issuing, by the proxy server, a
subsequent request to the content or service provider on behalf of
the mobile device, receiving a reply to the subsequent request, and
determining whether to provide or not provide the reply back to the
mobile device and providing or not providing the reply according to
the determination.
[0535] 25. The method of embodiment 24 where providing or not
providing the reply according to the determination includes
providing the reply to mobile device responsive to a determination
that the reply differs from a received response stored in the
server cache, a determination that the reply has a high priority,
and/or a determination that the reply includes time critical
data.
[0536] 26. The method of embodiment 23 including, at the proxy
server, responsive to a determination that the reply differs from a
received response stored in the server cache, indicating to the
local proxy that the cached resource has changed.
[0537] 27. The method of embodiment 26 where the local cache is
refreshed from the external entity immediately.
[0538] 28. The method of embodiment 26 where the local cache is not
refreshed from the external entity until the screen is lit.
[0539] 29. The method of embodiment 26 where the local cache is not
refreshed from the external entity until the screen is lit and the
radio transceiver is powered on or activated.
[0540] 30. The method of embodiment 26 including, at the local
proxy, responsive to receipt of the indication that cached resource
has changed, invalidating the cached resource immediately,
invalidating the cached resource when the screen is lit,
invalidating the cached resource when the screen is lit and the
radio transceiver is powered on or activated, and/or ignoring the
indication.
[0541] 31. The method of embodiment 30 further including
instructing the application to request and receive data from the
external entity.
[0542] 32. The method of embodiment 31 including providing a
response to the request from the local cache instead of from the
external entity.
[0543] 33. A system for distributed caching of information using
extended caching optimization, the system including a mobile device
for operating in a wireless network, where the device includes a
local cache and a local proxy for monitoring requests issued from
an application located within the device to an external entity not
located within the device and for storing, in the local cache,
responses to the monitored requests received from the external
entity, where the local proxy is configured to identify a request
as one that meets a first criterion for optimization and apply an
extended caching optimization, and where applying an extended
caching optimization includes preventing the identified request
from being transmitted to the external entity, and providing a
response to the identified request from the local cache.
[0544] 34. The system of embodiment 33 where the first criterion
for optimization includes a determination that the request matches
an observed periodicity.
[0545] 35. The system of embodiment 33 where the observed
periodicity comprises a simple periodicity or a complex
periodicity.
[0546] 36. The system of embodiment 33 where the local proxy is
configured to detect a repetition of a request-response interaction
between the application and the local proxy that exceeds a
threshold rate and apply a traffic calming technique to signaling
messages related to the application.
[0547] 37. The system of embodiment 36 where applying the traffic
calming technique includes increasing, by the local proxy, a delay
between receiving the request from the application and providing
the cached response to the application.
[0548] 38. The system of embodiment 37 where, responsive to a
detection that the application terminates a connection to the
external entity as a result of an increased delay between sending
the request and receiving the cached response, the local proxy
decreases the delay between receiving a request from the
application and providing a cached response to the application.
[0549] 39. The system of embodiment 38 where, responsive to a
determination that the application has terminated the connection to
the external entity more than a threshold number of times, the
local proxy terminates the traffic calming technique being applied
to signaling messages related to the application.
[0550] 40. The system of embodiment 33 where, responsive to a
detection that the application is requesting content that has been
invalidated, the local proxy terminates the extended caching
optimization for that application.
[0551] 41. The system of embodiment 36 where the local proxy
maintains a value of the shortest request interval (RI) between
successive requests from the application.
[0552] 42. The system of embodiment 41 where the local proxy uses
the maintained value of the shortest RI to identify a non-periodic
request as being associated with the application.
[0553] 43. The system of embodiment 36 where the local proxy
maintains a value of the longest response delay (RD) observed
between a request from the application and a response to the
request from the external entity.
[0554] 44. The system of embodiment 43 where the local proxy uses
the maintained value of the longest RD to identify a
request/response interaction as a long-poll interaction for the
application.
[0555] 45. The system of embodiment 44 where the local proxy uses
the maintained value of the longest RD as the polling frequency
during extended caching optimization for the application.
[0556] 46. The system of embodiment 33 where the first criterion
for optimization includes a determination that the request occurred
while the mobile device is in a target state.
[0557] 47. The system of embodiment 46 where the target state
includes a display of the mobile device is not lit, a radio circuit
of the mobile device is not active, a power consumption of the
mobile device is below a threshold value, and/or an absence of user
activity for longer than a threshold period.
[0558] 48. The system of embodiment 46 where the first criterion
for optimization is selectable by a user of the mobile device.
[0559] 49. The system of embodiment 33 where the identified request
comprises a domain name service (DNS) request.
[0560] 50. The system of embodiment 49 where the local proxy does
not terminate the extended caching optimization of the DNS request
until after a threshold time to live (TTL).
[0561] 51. The system of embodiment 49 where the local proxy does
not terminate the extended caching optimization of the DNS request
until after a threshold time to live (TTL) and a determination that
the screen is lit.
[0562] 52. The system of embodiment 49 where the local proxy does
not terminate the extended caching optimization of the DNS request
until after a threshold time to live (TTL), a determination that
the screen is lit, and a determination that the radio transceiver
is powered on or activated.
[0563] 53. The system of embodiment 33 where, responsive to a
detection of a repetition of a request-response interaction between
the application and the local proxy that exceeds a threshold rate,
the local proxy applies a traffic calming technique to signaling
messages related to the application.
[0564] 54. The system of embodiment 33 where identification of a
request as one that meets a first criterion for optimization
includes identification based on a characteristic of the request, a
characteristic of the requested data, and/or a characteristic of
the application making the request.
[0565] 55. The system of embodiment 33 including a proxy server,
located external to the mobile device, that receives requests from
the mobile device, forwards the requests to content or service
providers, receives from the content or service providers responses
to the forwarded requests, provides the responses back to the
mobile device, stores, in a server cache, copies of the forwarded
requests, stores, in the server cache, copies of the received
responses to the forwarded requests, identifies a request/response
pair as one that meets a second criterion for optimization, and,
responsive to identifying a request/response pair as one that meets
a second criterion for optimization, prevents the response from
being provided back to the mobile device.
[0566] 56. The system of embodiment 55 where, for each
request/response pair identified as meeting a criterion for
optimization, the proxy server issues a subsequent request to the
content or service provider on behalf of the mobile device,
receives a reply to the subsequent request, determines whether to
provide or not provide the reply back to the mobile device, and
provides or not provides the reply according to the
determination.
[0567] 57. The system of embodiment 56 where the proxy server
provides or not provides the reply based on a determination that
the reply differs from a received response stored in the server
cache, a determination that the reply has a high priority, and/or a
determination that the reply includes time critical data.
[0568] 58. The system of embodiment 55 where, responsive to a
determination that the reply differs from a received response
stored in the server cache, the proxy server indicates to the local
proxy that the cached resource has changed.
[0569] 59. The system of embodiment 58 where, in response to
receiving from the proxy server the indication that the cached
resource has changed, the local cache is refreshed from the
external entity immediately.
[0570] 60. The system of embodiment 58 where, in response to
receiving from the proxy server the indication that the cached
resource has changed, the local cache is not refreshed from the
external entity until the screen is lit.
[0571] 61. The system of embodiment 58 where, in response to
receiving from the proxy server the indication that the cached
resource has changed, the local cache is not refreshed from the
external entity until the screen is lit and the radio transceiver
is powered on or activated.
[0572] 62. The system of embodiment 58 where the local proxy,
responds to receipt of the indication that cached resource has
changed by invalidating the cached resource immediately,
invalidating the cached resource when the screen is lit,
invalidating the cached resource when the screen is lit and the
radio transceiver is powered on or activated, or ignoring the
indication.
[0573] 63. The system of embodiment 62 where the local proxy
instructs the application to request and receive data from the
external entity.
[0574] 64. The system of embodiment 62 where the local proxy
provides a response to the request from the local cache instead of
from the external entity.
* * * * *