Management of polling traffic in connection oriented protocol sessions

Abstract

Traffic involved in maintaining a set of connection oriented sessions between end stations in a network is managed to optimize and reduce the polling traffic needed to maintain the connection oriented sessions across a common link between edge devices. At a first edge device, a member of a set of connection oriented sessions is selected as a polling session. Request polling traffic of that polling session is forwarded from a first edge device to the second edge device. All other polling traffic from other members of the set of connection oriented sessions is blocked at the first edge device. The set of connection oriented sessions is maintained in response to polling traffic of the selected polling session. A similar algorithm is executed at the second edge device to manage the traffic in both directions across the common link. The step of selecting a polling session for use across the intermediate link includes changing the polling session from one to another member of the set of connection oriented sessions from time to time. Preferably, this is done in a round robin fashion, so that each of the connection oriented sessions is utilized in turn for maintaining the intermediate link. The technique is based on dividing the connection oriented sessions into a first link session between the first edge device and a first end station coupled to the first edge device, an immediate session between the first and second edge devices, and a second link session between the second edge device and a second end station coupled to the second edge device.