Network Communication Reliability via Update Packets
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current computing networks face reliability issues due to packet loss, particularly in latency-sensitive communications, as they often rely on acknowledgment packets that increase overhead and latency, with TCP providing reliability at the cost of latency and UDP being less reliable.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a technique where communicating devices send update packets that include sufficient information to update multiple previous states of a data object, allowing recipients to recover from packet loss without requesting retransmissions, thereby reducing latency and eliminating the need for acknowledgment packets.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If TCP is used to provide reliable communication with packet acknowledgments, then reliability is improved, but latency increases due to overhead and retransmission waiting
Solution Approach 1:
The sender transmits multiple packets containing incremental updates of the data object state in advance, so that if any packet is lost, the recipient can reconstruct the state using the most recent received packet without needing to request retransmission. This preliminary transmission of redundant state information eliminates the need for acknowledgment packets and retransmission waiting.
Solution Approach 2:
Each packet contains a complete or incremental copy of the data object state, allowing the recipient to use any received packet to reconstruct the current state. This copying approach replaces the need for acknowledgment-based reliability mechanisms, reducing latency while maintaining reliability.
2Reliability
If acknowledgment packets are sent for every received packet to ensure reliability, then reliability is improved, but bandwidth overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts and eliminates the acknowledgment packet mechanism from the communication protocol. Instead of sending separate acknowledgment packets, the sender transmits multiple data packets with incremental state updates, and the recipient uses the most recent packet to reconstruct the state, removing the need for acknowledgment overhead.
Solution Approach 2:
The data packets themselves contain sufficient information to ensure reliable state reconstruction without external acknowledgment packets. Each packet is self-sufficient in providing the state information needed, eliminating the need for separate acknowledgment communication channels.
3Reliability
If acknowledgment packets are used to detect and retransmit lost packets, then reliability is improved, but device complexity increases due to session management and acknowledgment tracking
Solution Approach 1:
The invention removes the complex session management and acknowledgment tracking mechanisms from the protocol. By transmitting multiple packets with incremental state updates and using the most recent packet for reconstruction, the system eliminates the need for complex session state tracking and acknowledgment management on both sender and recipient sides.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are disclosed relating to improving the reliable of a computing network. A first computing device receives changing states of a data object to send to a second computing device via a network interface. The first computing device sends, to the second computing device, a baseline packet having a complete one of the states of the data object. The first computing device sends, to the second computing device, a sequence of update packets corresponding to the changing states of the data object. An update packet in the sequence includes sufficient information to update a stored state of the data object at the second computing device to a current state of the data object responsive to the stored state being one of two or more previous ones of the states.