Systems and methods for providing efficient bandwidth utilization in packet switched networks
AssigneeGeneral Dynamics C4 Systems, Inc.
InventorsScott David Blanchard, Edward Kerry Orcutt, Dean Paul Vanden Heuvel
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Systems and methods are described for efficiently transmitting packetized data from a sender to a receiver over a communications link. A compression context is established between the sender and the receiver based upon commonalities in each of the data packets prior to transmitting the data over the communications link. The data is compressed according to the compression context to thereby create compressed data packets, and the compressed data packets are transmitted to the receiver across the communications link. By establishing compression contexts prior to transmission, the need for in-band signaling is reduced or eliminated.
Claims19
A system for communicating with a second station via a communications channel established over a communications link, the system comprising:
- an application configured to generate data;
- a packetizer configured to receive the data from the application and to transform the data into data packets each formed in accordance with one of a plurality of pre-determined packet-based protocol formats;
- and
- a compressor configured to receive the data packets from the packetizer, to negotiate a plurality of stateless compression contexts with the second station prior to establishing the communications channel, wherein each of the plurality of stateless compression contexts is based upon commonalities in one of the packet-based protocol formats of the data packets including address information about the second station, and, after establishing the communications channel with the second station, to remove the commonalities from the data packets according to the compression contexts to thereby create compressed packets in link formats different from the pre-determined packet-based protocol formats, and to supply the compressed packets for transmission to the second station via the communications channel.
A method for efficiently transmitting data comprising a plurality of packets from a sender to a receiver over a communications channel over a communications link, the method comprising the steps of:
- negotiating a first compression context and a second compression context between the sender and the receiver based upon commonalities in pre-determined packet-based protocol formats used by at least some of the plurality of data packets including address information about the sender and the receiver, wherein the negotiating is performed prior to establishing the communications channel with the receiver;
- after establishing the communications channel with the receiver, comparing an incoming one of the plurality of packets to the first compression context;
- if the incoming packet is consistent with the first compression context, removing the commonalities in the data according to the first compression context to thereby create a first compressed data packet in a first format and transmitting the first compressed data packet to the receiver via the communications channel;
- and
- if the incoming packet is consistent with the second compression context, removing the reproducible content of the incoming packet to thereby create a second compressed data packet in a second format that is different from the first format, and transmitting the second compressed data packet to the receiver across the communications channel.
A method for processing data packets formatted according to a plurality of common packet-based protocol formats each having a plurality of data fields, the method comprising:
- prior to establishing a communications channel with a transmitter of the data packets, negotiating a plurality of stateless compression contexts over a communications link, wherein each of the plurality of stateless compression contexts describes commonalities in the packet-based protocol formats that are found in the compressed data packets including address information about the transmitter of the data packets;
- establishing the communications channel with the transmitter via the communications link;
- after establishing the communications channel, receiving the data packets over the communications link, wherein the data packets are received in a plurality of compressed formats in which the commonalities have been removed;
- restoring the commonalities in the data packets in accordance with the packet-based protocol format using each of the plurality of stateless compression contexts;
- and
- providing the restored data packets to a recipient.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.