Akamai Technologies, Inc.

Gregory Fletcher

Andrew F Champagne

Brandon O Williams

William R Sears

Daniel Stodolsky

Michael M Afergan

Kevin Harmon

Applications that run on an overlay network-based managed service achieve high performance gains using a set of TCP optimizations. In a first optimization, a typical single TCP connection between a client and an origin server is broken into preferably three (3) separate TCP connections. These connections are: an edge-to-client connection, an edge-to-edge connection, and edge-to-origin connection. A second optimization replicates TCP state along the connection to increase fault tolerance. In this approach, preferably a given TCP connection is maintained on two servers. When a packet is received by one server, called the primary, its state is updated and then passed to a second server, called the backup. Only when the backup sends an acknowledgement back to the primary can it then send a TCP acknowledgement back to the host that originally sent the packet. Another optimization reduces connection establishment latency.

Reducing TCP connection establishment time in an overlay network

The present invention leverages an existing content delivery network infrastructure to provide a system that enhances performance for any application that uses the Internet Protocol (IP) as its underlying transport mechanism. An overlay network comprises a set of edge nodes, intermediate nodes, and gateway nodes. This network provides optimized routing of IP packets. Internet application users can use the overlay to obtain improved performance during normal network conditions, to obtain or maintain good performance where normal default BGP routing would otherwise force the user over congested or poorly performing paths, or to enable the user to maintain communications to a target server application even during network outages.

Reliable, high-throughput, high-performance transport and routing mechanism for arbitrary data flows

Applications that run on an overlay network-based managed service achieve high performance gains using a set of TCP optimizations. In a first optimization, a typical single TCP connection between a client and an origin server is broken into preferably three (3) separate TCP connections. These connections are: an edge-to-client connection, an edge-to-edge connection, and edge-to-origin connection. A second optimization replicates TCP state along the connection to increase fault tolerance. In this approach, preferably a given TCP connection is maintained on two servers. When a packet is received by one server, called the primary, its state is updated and then passed to a second server, called the backup. Only when the backup sends an acknowledgement back to the primary can it then send a TCP acknowledgement back to the host that originally sent the packet. Another optimization reduces connection establishment latency. In particular, data is sent across the edge-to-edge connection before waiting for a SYN/ACK from a receiving region to be received by the sending region. This is achieved by generating a SYN/ACK packet (at the sending region) and feeding it back to the edge-to-edge connection. This causes TCP to treat the connection as established, thereby allowing data to flow.

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Boston, MA, United States of America

Gregory Fletcher