Method, apparatus and system for maintaining connections between computers using connection-oriented protocols
View Patent ↗The present invention provides a system, method and apparatus for maintaining a connection between a server and a client by receiving a message, determining whether to store one or more elements of the message, storing the one or more elements of the message when the one or more elements of the message are to be stored, transmitting the message, and determining whether the server has failed and when the server has failed, restoring the server to a pre-failure connection state using the one or more stored message elements.
1. A system comprising:
a server computer having a process layer, a protocol layer coupled to the process layer through a first wrapper, and a network interface coupled to the protocol layer through a second wrapper wherein the first wrapper interposes active software between the protocol layer and the process layer, and the second wrapper interposes active software between the network interface and the protocol layer;
a log server coupled to the first wrapper and the second wrapper wherein the first wrapper and second wrapper are capable of receiving a message, determining whether to store one or more elements of the message, storing the one or more elements of the message in the log server when the one or more elements of the message are to be stored, transmitting the message, and determining whether the server computer has failed and when the server computer has failed, restoring the server computer to a pre-failure connection state using the one or more stored message elements;
one or more client computers; and
one or more network connections between the one or more client computers and the network interface of the server computer.
2. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the first wrapper is interposed in a first interface between the process layer and the protocol layer, and the second wrapper is interposed in a second interface between the protocol layer and the network interface.
3. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the first wrapper and the second wrapper are interposed in the protocol layer.
4. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the first wrapper and second wrapper are further capable of determining whether to delay the message, and delaying the transmission of the message until one or more conditions are satisfied when the message is to be delayed.
5. The system as recited in claim 4 , wherein the one or more conditions comprises successful storage of the one or more elements of the message.
6. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the first wrapper and second wrapper are further capable of determining whether to discard the message, discarding the message when the message is to be discarded, and not transmitting the message when the message is to be discarded.
7. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the first wrapper and second wrapper are further capable of determining whether to modify the message, modifying one or more elements of the message when the message is to be modified.
8. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the second wrapper is further capable of periodically transmitting an outgoing message to maintain the connection until the application is restored.
9. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the first wrapper and second wrapper are further capable of periodically storing a current state of the server and discarding any stored elements that are no longer needed to restore the server to the current state.
10. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the message is a protocol segment.
11. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the message conforms to the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) standard.
12. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the log server is remotely located from the server.
13. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the log server is a stable memory in the server.
14. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the log server is a secondary server.