US 10,476,771 B2Granted

Layer 4 switching for persistent connections

AssigneeAkamai Technologies, Inc.

InventorByung K. Choi

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Abstract

This disclosure provides for a Layer 4 switching approach wherein a set of L4 switches are organized into a cluster so as to act as a single (or “big”) Layer 4 switch. Connections between the L4 switches are carried out, e.g., using Layer 2 switches. To this end, an intra-cluster routing entity of the switch maintains mapping information (e.g., in a database, or set of data structures) about connections that have been established by the individual switches within the cluster. In this approach, each host (itself a switch) preferably acts like a group of ports of the larger (big) switch. This obviates having each member host from having to maintain connections to many possible destinations. Rather, the intra-cluster routing entity maintains the information about which hosts (and its ports) are connected to which destinations, and the connections are re-used as necessary, even if connections on one side of the “big” switch ceased being used.

Claims12

Dependent claims

Apparatus associated with an overlay network, the overlay network comprising a plurality of overlay nodes organized as edge nodes, parent nodes and other Internet Protocol (IP)-addressable nodes, the overlay network nodes being positioned between requesting client devices and content provider origin servers that utilize the overlay network nodes to thereby provide content and application delivery to the requesting client devices, comprising:

a set of switches organized into an interface, wherein each switch in the set of switches provides a group of ports that are dedicated to providing out-bound connections to given destinations, wherein the interface is positioned between one of:
(IP)-addressable nodes and edge nodes, the edge nodes and the parent nodes, and the parent nodes and the content provider origin servers;
and
a controller to control routing across the interface such that, as requesting client devices interact with content provider origin servers, a given connection to a destination in a particular switch is used by first and second in-bound connections;
wherein providing the interface with out-bound connections improves overlay network performance by reducing connection establishment overhead with respect to communications between the requesting client devices and content provider origin servers that traverse the overlay network.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 16/259,476Filed 28 Jan 2019 · continuation
Priority: 29 May 2015
Published: US 2019/0158375 A123 May 2019
Granted: 12 Nov 2019
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification4 codes

H04L 43/0876
Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters: network utilisation, e.g. volume of…
H04L 61/4517
Using standardised directories; using standardised directory access protocols: using open systems interconnection [OSI] directories, e.g. X.500
H04L 69/326
Intralayer communication protocols among peer entities or protocol data unit [PDU] definitions: in the transport layer [OSI layer 4]
H04L
Digital communication

Family

Application62/167,914Us provisional application · filed 29 May 2015
Application15/169,250Parent of this continuation · filed 31 May 2016
US 2019/0158375 A1Pre-grant publication · published 23 May 2019
US 10,193,782 B1Parent of this continuation
US 10,476,771 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.