Object caching for mobile data communication with mobility management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10120801-B2
Application number	US-201314378118-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 8, 2013
Priority date	Mar 13, 2012
Publication date	Nov 6, 2018
Grant date	Nov 6, 2018

Abstract

Method and system are provided for object caching with mobility management for mobile data communication. The method may include: intercepting and snooping data communications at a base station between a user equipment and a content server without terminating communications; implementing object caching at the base station using snooped data communications; implementing object caching at an object cache server in the network, wherein the object cache server proxies communications to the content server from the user equipment; and maintaining synchrony between an object cache at the base station and an object cache at the object cache server.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for object caching with mobility management for mobile data communication, comprising:
intercepting and snooping data communications at a base station between a user equipment and a content server without terminating communications;
implementing object caching at the base station using snooped data communications;
implementing object caching at an object cache server in the network, wherein the object cache server proxies communications to the content server from the user equipment;
maintaining synchrony between an object cache at the base station and an object cache at the object cache server by monitoring a state of a connection of a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) at the object cache server;
determining a state of the TCP at the object cache server based on monitoring the state of the connection of the TCP;
predicting sequence numbers of the TCP at the object cache server used to send a response to the user equipment based on the determining of the state of the TCP at the object cache server;
detecting, by the object cache server, a movement of the user equipment from the base station while a requested object is being served to the user equipment from a cache of the base station; and
taking over, by the object cache server, serving the requested object based on the detecting, wherein the taking over includes providing a remainder of the requested object by the object cache server.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising:
establishing a tunnel with a network and the user equipment;
establishing a TCP connection over the tunnel to a HTTP port of a content server;
making a request for a web object over a HTTP connection; and
providing a data response to the user equipment from the base station providing a cached object, wherein the data response mimics a response from the object cache server.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2 , wherein providing a data response comprises creating a sequence of bytes.

4. The method as claimed in claim 2 , further comprising:
providing a notification to the object cache server in response to a cache hit being made at the base station for a data communication; and
using the snooped data communications to perform a lookup on a local cache of the base station.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising:
in response to a cache hit at the base station for a data communication, serving the cached object to the user equipment in data packets;
snooping, by the base station, one or more acknowledgement data packets from the user equipment and allowing the acknowledgement data packets to proceed to the object cache server where they are used to maintain the state of the TCP at the object cache server; and
monitoring the TCP connection at the object cache server during the snooping.

6. The method as claimed in claim 5 , further comprising:
modifying the object cache server to accommodate receiving acknowledgement data packets from the user equipment for data packets it has not generated; and
modifying a HTTP GET of the user equipment to include a notification that content is cached at the object cache server.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising:
snooping at the base station a response from the object cache server;
caching an object of the response in response to the object being cached at the object cache server; and
modifying a HTTP GET of the user equipment to include a notification that content is cached at the object cache server.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising:
in response to a cache hit being served from the object cache server and a notification that the base station has received a cache hit, stopping the serving of the object from the object cache server whilst maintaining the state of the TCP at the object cache server which mirrors a TCP state of the base station.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising:
detecting a movement of the user equipment from a base station cell by the object cache server; and
taking over, by a new base station, serving an object of a request.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising:
maintaining an object cache at each base station consistent with an object cache at the object cache server, wherein the state of the TCP at the object cache server is maintained at each base station.

11. The method as claimed in claim 10 , further comprising:
providing an object cache at each base station of a fixed size;
providing an object cache at the object cache server of a size equal to the sum of all the base station object caches; and
partitioning the object cache of the object cache server to manage separately the objects cached for each base station.

12. The method as claimed in claim 10 , further comprising:
providing a same caching logic and a same parameters at the base stations and at the object cache server.

13. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising:
implementing byte caching at the base station and at the object cache server, wherein the byte caching enables partial cache hits; and
wherein the base station holds one or more sequences of byte caching tokens keyed on data request details and maintains the state of the TCP at the base station as the same as the TCP state at the object cache server.

14. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the data communications are hypertext transfer protocol requests and responses.

15. A system for object caching with mobility management for mobile data communication, comprising:
a processor;
a network containing one or more base stations, wherein the network supports mobility management of data transfer to and from a user equipment;
an object cache component at a base station for intercepting and snooping data communications between the user equipment and a content server without terminating communications;
an object cache server in the network, wherein the object cache server is configured to:
proxy communications to the content server from the user equipment;
synchronize components at the base station and object cache server for maintaining synchrony between a fake TCP socket of an object cache at the base station and a real TCP socket of an object cache at the object cache server by causing the fake TCP socket of the object cache at the base station to imitate the real TCP socket of the object cache at the object cache server;
detect a movement of the user equipment from the base station while a requested object is being served to the user equipment from a cache of the base station; and
take over serving the requested object based on the detecting, wherein the taking over includes providing a remainder of the requested object by the object cache server.

16. The system as claimed in claim 15 , wherein the object cache component at the base station further comprises:
a mimicking component for providing a data response to a user equipment from the base station providing a cached object, wherein the data response mimics a response from the object cache server;
a breakout component for breaking out traffic to received at the object cache component; and
the fake TCP socket which mimics a behavior and the state of the TCP of the real TCP socket of the object cache server.

17. The system as claimed in claim 15 , wherein the object cache component at the base station includes a notification component for providing a notification to the object cache server in response to a cache hit being made at the base station for a data communication.

Assignees

• Globalfoundries Inc

Inventors

• Deakin Oliver M
• Moore Victor S
• Nicholson Robert B
• Thorne Colin J

Classifications

• H04W36/0011

  for data sessions of end-to-end connection · CPC title

• H04L67/2842

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G06F2212/621

  Coherency control relating to peripheral accessing, e.g. from DMA or I/O device · CPC title

• H04W36/08

  Reselecting an access point · CPC title

• H04W88/08

  Access point devices · CPC title