| Method for improving web performance by adapting servers based on client cluster characterization -> Monitor Keywords |
|
|
  Method for improving web performance by adapting servers based on client cluster characterizationUSPTO Application #: 20080091795Title: Method for improving web performance by adapting servers based on client cluster characterization Abstract: The present invention is a method for improving delivery of content to a client communicating with a server on the Web. Groups or clusters of clients are formed by processing the IP addresses of the clients according to a network-aware, radix-encoded trie classification process. The groups of clients are categorized based on information about one or more clients in each group that can be determined by the server. That information is used to help drive tailored actions on the part of Web servers. Users with poor connectivity may choose not to spend much time at a Web site if it takes a long time to receive a page, even if the Web server at the site is not the bottleneck. Retaining such clients may be of interest to a Web site. Better-connected clients may be able to receive enhanced representations of Web pages such as with higher quality images. Once a group of clients is characterized as poor, a variety of server actions can be taken by the server, including altering the delivered content or the manner in which content is delivered, including guiding server policy decisions, aiding in caching decisions and deciding when to redirect the client to a mirror site. Clustering permits those actions to be taken even if no client-specific categorization is available. (end of abstract) Agent: At&t Corp. - Bedminster, NJ, US Inventors: Balachander Krishnamurthy, Craig Ellis Wills USPTO Applicaton #: 20080091795 - Class: 709217000 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Electrical Computers And Digital Processing Systems: Multicomputer Data Transferring, Remote Data Accessing The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20080091795. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application No. 60/346,366, filed on Nov. 9, 2001, the contents of which are fully incorporated herein by reference. [0002] This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/705,675 filed on Nov. 3, 2000, which claims benefit of U.S. provisional application No. 60/215,302, filed on Jun. 30, 2000 and U.S. provisional application No. 60/234,511, filed Sep. 22, 2000, the contents of which are fully incorporated herein by reference. [0003] U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/705,675 is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/603,154 filed on Jul. 23, 2000, which claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application No. 60/151,194 filed Aug. 27, 1999, the contents of which are fully incorporated herein by reference. FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0004] The present invention relates generally to the client-server model used extensively in the World Wide Web, and, more particularly, to a method for improving the performance of that model by characterizing clusters of clients and adapting servers based on that characterization. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0005] Web performance has been a key focus of research. User-perceived latency has a strong bearing on how long users will stay at a Web site and the frequency with which they return to the site. An entity that is trying to retain users at a Web site thus has a strong incentive to reduce the "time to glass" (the delay between the browser click and the delivery and display of the resource at the user's screen). For Web sites that have a critical need to retain users past the first page, there is a strong motivation to deliver the content quickly to the user. Given the vagaries of network delays, presence of intermediaries, and the users' connectivity, there is a need for servers to efficiently transmit content to clients. [0006] A client may be interested in downloading only the HTML contents of the base page without any of the images in the container document. Often that is due to a poor level of client connectivity. Browsers permit this by allowing users to turn off images before downloading the resource. A page will typically load much faster if additional requests are not needed for the embedded objects. Depending on the number and sizes of the embedded objects, the overall download time of a container document can vary significantly. The download time of a container document (a base page plus all its embedded objects) has a visible impact on the user's perception of the Web site. A significant portion of users dissatisfied with the download time for a page may move on to another Web site. If a user with poor connectivity must wait a long time to load the most often visited pages on a Web site, the user might decide to stop visiting the site on a regular basis. [0007] The present invention focuses on learning about the quality of a connection between a client and a server and on using that information in making a decision on how to serve content. The client's connectivity information may be obtained based on information already available at the server, or, alternatively, may be obtained actively by gathering information about the more dynamic components of the end-to-end delay, such as the bandwidth of the client or delays in the network. [0008] Among the key reasons behind a client experiencing poor performance are low bandwidth, high latency, slow client, network congestion, delay at intermediaries between client and server, and a poorly equipped server. The present disclosure addresses those situations in which the server itself is not the primary performance bottleneck; otherwise the server could simply be upgraded. A server may not be able to isolate the reasons for a given client experiencing poor performance, but can nevertheless take remedial action. Improved performance in serving the content might result in the user being satisfied with the delivery speed and help retain the client for the Web site. Simply downgrading the quality of the content to achieve those results may not be as effective in retaining a client as other means that do not affect content quality. [0009] The concept of dynamically adjusting multimedia content in a Web page depending on effective bandwidth and/or latency is suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 6,243,761 to Mogul et al. That patent discloses a method whereby a Web server monitors a variety of network characteristics (such as round trip time, resource utilization) between itself and the client and correspondingly adjusts the fidelity, or quality, of the content returned to the client so as to adjust the required bandwidth. The content is adjusted, for example, by adjusting image size, image resolution, or by compression. Each of those operations reduces the quantity of data to be sent to the client. In each case, however, the content arriving at the client has a corresponding reduction in quality as compared with the original content delivered to high-bandwidth users. Such a reduction in the quality of content may reduce client interest in a Web site, thereby reducing the effect of a decreased response time. Mogul et al. also teach making performance observations from previous connections to the same client, or from connections to clients that are "close" to each other. [0010] In a paper entitled "SPAND: Shared Passive Network Performance Discovery," USENIX Symposium on Internet Technologies and Systems, Monterey, Calif., USA, December 1997, the authors disclose a system wherein a group of clients estimate cost to retrieve resources and share it amongst themselves. No action is taken on the part of the server. [0011] Other work, presented in "Integrating User-Perceived Quality into Web Server Design," Proceedings of the Ninth Annual World Wide Web Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands, estimates the tolerance of users for different levels of Web Quality of Service (QoS) in e-commerce. That work proposes that scheduling of requests at a Web server should take user expectations into account. [0012] There is therefore a need for a method and system enabling a server to measure client performance and to adjust its actions to optimize content delivery to that client, without downgrading the content itself. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0013] The present invention addresses those needs by providing a method for improving performance of a server delivering content to a client. The server and client communicate through a connection. In one embodiment of the present invention, a method is provided wherein a group of clients including the first client is formed by processing the IP addresses of the clients according to a radix encoded trie classification process. The group is classified into a group classification according to at least one criterion indicative of at least one connection through which content is delivered to at least one member of the group other than the first client. A request is received from the first client to serve content through the first connection. A response to the client request is altered in accordance with the group classification, and the response is sent to the client. [0014] The response may be altered by altering the content to be delivered. [0015] Alternatively, the response may be altered by altering the manner in which the content is delivered. In that case, the client may be redirected to a mirror server, or a length of allowed TCP sessions may be increased. Meta-information delivered with the content may be changed, resulting either in extending a freshness lifetime of an object in the content, or in altering a policy of including cache validation requests with other messages exchanged with the server. The content itself may be altered before delivery in an altered manner. [0016] The step of classifying the group of clients according to a connection criterion may include placing the group in one of a poor, a normal and a rich class. In that case, the group is may initially be placed in the normal class. [0017] The step of classifying the group of clients may include receiving client characterization information from at least one member of the group. The step of classifying may alternatively include measuring a time between accepting a TCP connection from the member of the group and receipt of a first HTTP request from that member. [0018] The step of classifying the group of clients may include the steps of sending, in response to a client request from a member of the group, a redirect response, and measuring a time between the client request and a redirected client request from the member. The step of classifying may include measuring a time between transmittal of a container document to a member of the group and receipt of a first request for an object in the document, or receipt of a last request for an object in the document. [0019] The classifying step may include measuring a criterion based on of a plurality of server requests. In that case, a criterion value E.sub.first may be adjusted based on a new measurement E.sub.measured according to a formula E.sub.first=.alpha.E.sub.first+(1-.alpha.)E.sub.measured, wherein .alpha. is a smoothing value in a range from 0 to 1. [0020] The client group may comprise a cluster of clients under common administrative control. [0021] The method may include the further steps of generating a cookie containing a result of the classification step, and transmitting the cookie to the first client. The step of classifying the group of clients may include transmitting an executable to at least one of the clients for measuring the criterion indicative of a connection. Continue reading... Full patent description for Method for improving web performance by adapting servers based on client cluster characterization Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Method for improving web performance by adapting servers based on client cluster characterization patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. Start now! - Receive info on patent apps like Method for improving web performance by adapting servers based on client cluster characterization or other areas of interest. ### Previous Patent Application: Communication system, communication device and communication method Next Patent Application: Method, system and computer program product for cataloging a global computer network Industry Class: Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomputer data transferring or plural processor synchronization ### FreshPatents.com Support Thank you for viewing the Method for improving web performance by adapting servers based on client cluster characterization patent info. IP-related news and info Results in 0.67731 seconds Other interesting Feshpatents.com categories: Canon USA , Celera Genomics , Cephalon, Inc. , Cingular Wireless , Clorox , Colgate-Palmolive , Corning , Cymer , |
||
