Web Page Load Timing Breakdown for Bottleneck Attribution

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Solution Overview

Problem

It is challenging to piece together monitoring and logging data across disparate systems, tools, and layers in a network architecture to identify performance bottlenecks in web page load, which hampers service performance and user experience.

Innovation Solution

A monitoring process that attributes timing of web page load into discrete components such as static first-party resources, dynamic first-party resources, CDN resources, non-CDN third-party resources, and network infrastructure connections, and prorates timing spans across these components based on concurrent activity.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If traditional timing methods are used to measure overall page load time, then the measurement is simple and straightforward, but the diagnostic value is limited because it cannot identify specific component performance issues

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveload time measurement precisionVSAvoidtiming infrastructure complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the overall page load time into distinct chronological components (DNS lookup, TCP handshake, TLS handshake, HTML download, resource download, parsing, rendering) by assigning specific timestamp markers to each event. This segmentation transforms a single aggregate measurement into multiple discrete measurable events, enabling precise identification of performance bottlenecks in specific network or processing stages without requiring complex additional infrastructure.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

2Loss of information

If detailed timing markers are added to each component event, then the diagnostic capability is significantly improved, but the implementation complexity and data processing burden increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveperformance diagnostic informationVSAvoidtiming infrastructure complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements preliminary action by pre-defining a standardized set of timing marker events that should be recorded at specific points in the web page loading process. The system prepares the timing infrastructure in advance to automatically capture these predefined events, eliminating the need for complex real-time analysis or manual instrumentation during operation. This approach ensures comprehensive performance data collection while maintaining implementation simplicity through standardized event definitions.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentEP3935816B1Breaking down the load time of a web page into coherent components
Publication Date: 2026.04.29 CISCO TECHNOLOGY INC
  • EP3935816B1 patent drawingFigure 1A
  • EP3935816B1 patent drawingFigure 1B
  • EP3935816B1 patent drawingFigure 2

AI summary

In one embodiment, a monitoring process monitors timing of navigations and resources of a web page load, and attributes timing of the navigations and resources into corresponding timing components. In particular, the monitoring process may attribute timing of static first-party resources and timing of hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) redirects to a core frontend timing component, and may attribute timing of dynamic first- party resources to a core backend timing component. The monitoring process may also attribute timing of content delivery network (CDN) resources to a CDN timing component, and may attribute timing of non-CDN third-party resources to a third-party timing component. Lastly, the monitoring process may further attribute timing of network infrastructure connections to a core connections timing component. Accordingly, the monitoring process may then perform one or more actions based on the attributing steps.