Compressed IP Address Bitmap Shared Memory Lookup
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Solution Overview
Problem
Frequent updates to IP address databases, such as those occurring every 15 minutes with thousands of insertions and deletions, lead to significant performance drops in lookup operations, rendering the database unusable due to resource hold-ups and prolonged update times.
Innovation Solution
A system utilizing a compressed bitmap of the entire IP address space stored in shared memory, allowing for O(1) constant time lookups, updates, and access by multiple clients, with continuous updating and minimal overhead, using an IP address updater and lookup agent to manage the bitmap and ensure efficient malicious IP address detection.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the IP address database is updated frequently with thousands of insertions and deletions, then the database remains current and useful for detection, but the lookup performance suffers a large drop-off due to resource hold-ups
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the IP address database into fixed-size pages that can be independently loaded and updated. Instead of updating the entire database at once, only the affected pages containing changed IP addresses are updated, allowing other pages to remain accessible for lookups. This segmentation enables concurrent read operations on unaffected pages while updates proceed on specific pages, resolving the contradiction between maintaining database currency and preserving lookup performance.
2Reliability
If the entire IP address database is re-indexed during updates, then the database remains accurate, but the update process takes a certain amount of time and renders the database practically unusable
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-allocating fixed-size pages and pre-computing page boundaries before updates occur. When updates are needed, the system has already prepared the page structure, allowing for rapid page-level updates without requiring full database re-indexing. This preliminary structuring enables the database to maintain accuracy through targeted page updates while minimizing update duration and avoiding complete database unavailability.
3Quantity of substance
If a conventional IP address database is used with millions of records, then comprehensive coverage is achieved, but memory consumption is high and performance drops during frequent updates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by organizing the IP address database into fixed-size pages with specific properties optimized for their function. Each page is a self-contained unit that can be independently managed in memory, allowing the system to load only the necessary pages into memory rather than loading the entire database. This page-based local organization reduces memory consumption while maintaining comprehensive IP address coverage, as only active pages need to be resident in memory at any given time.
Data Source
AI summary
A new approach is proposed that supports IP address lookup. An IP address updater creates a bitmap of an IP address space, wherein each bit in the bitmap corresponds to an IP address in the IP address space. The compressed bitmap is then populated and stored permanently on a shared memory storage that is accessible by multiple client applications at the same time. The client applications may each establish and maintain a connection to the shared memory storage through an IP address lookup agent. When a lookup request for an IP address is received, the IP address lookup agent checks the bitmap and associated information of the IP address space on the shared memory storage to determine if the IP address is malicious or not and to inform the client application making the request accordingly, while the bitmap on the shared memory storage is updated with new IP address update.