Akamai Technologies, Inc.

Kevin Harmon

Brandon O Williams

William R Sears

Gregory Fletcher

Martin K Lohner

Jeffrey Bower

A mechanism to facilitate a private network (VPN)-as-a-service, preferably within the context of an overlay IP routing mechanism implemented within an overlay network. A network-as-a-service customer operates endpoints that are desired to be connected to one another securely and privately using the overlay IP (OIP) routing mechanism. The overlay provides delivery of packets end-to-end between overlay network appliances positioned at the endpoints. During such delivery, the appliances are configured such that the data portion of each packet has a distinct encryption context from the encryption context of the TCP/IP portion of the packet. By establishing and maintaining these distinct encryption contexts, the overlay network can decrypt and access the TCP/IP flow. This enables the overlay network provider to apply one or more TCP optimizations. At the same time, the separate encryption contexts ensure the data portion of each packet is never available in the clear at any point during transport.

Virtual private network (VPN)-as-a-service with delivery optimizations while maintaining end-to-end data security

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

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.

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Kevin Harmon