State Machine Surrogate for Intermittent Client Connectivity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing application services face challenges in maintaining stateful information for clients that cannot maintain a constant connection, such as mobile clients with unreliable network connectivity and stateless web clients, which hinders seamless communication and collaboration.
Innovation Solution
A system comprising a client proxy that collects status information and a state machine that maintains and provides stateful information, acting as a surrogate for clients to ensure consistent state information is available to external services, even during connection interruptions, and allows clients to remotely control their stateful information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If clients maintain constant connection to application services, then stateful information can be maintained reliably, but clients with intermittent connectivity (mobile clients, web clients) cannot function properly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a server as an intermediary that maintains stateful information on behalf of clients. The server acts as a mediator between external services and clients with intermittent connectivity, storing state information and managing connections so that clients do not need to maintain constant connections while stateful information is preserved reliably.
Solution Approach 2:
The server performs preliminary actions by pre-establishing and maintaining connections to external services and pre-loading stateful information before clients need it. This allows clients to connect intermittently while the server has already prepared the necessary state information and connections in advance.
2Adaptability or versatility
If mobile clients operate in harsh environments with periodic transmission silence, then clients can function in diverse locations, but network connectivity becomes unreliable and state information is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The server serves as a buffer and intermediary that absorbs the impact of unreliable network connectivity. It maintains persistent connections to external services while allowing mobile clients to connect intermittently, thereby protecting stateful information from being lost during transmission silences or connectivity interruptions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements beforehand cushioning by maintaining a buffer of stateful information on the server side. This cushion protects against connectivity failures by ensuring that state information is already stored and preserved before any potential connection loss occurs, allowing clients to resume operations seamlessly when connectivity is restored.
3Ease of operation
If web clients issue stateless requests without maintaining persistent connections, then clients can access web services easily, but application services cannot rely upon these clients to maintain constant connection
Solution Approach 1:
The server acts as an intermediary that translates between the stateless nature of web clients and the stateful requirements of application services. It maintains stateful information and persistent connections on the server side while allowing web clients to continue issuing simple stateless requests, thereby bridging the gap between client simplicity and service reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The server creates and maintains a copy of stateful information that represents the client's state. This copy persists on the server independent of client connection status, allowing the server to maintain reliable stateful information while clients continue to operate with simple stateless requests without needing to maintain the actual connection state.
Data Source
AI summary
A system for maintaining stateful information includes a client proxy configured to receive and collect status information associated with a client, and a state machine executing on a processor to collect and store the status information in a memory and provide stateful information associated with the client. The client may be a stateless client and the state machine may be configured to maintain stateful information associated with the stateless client. The state machine is may be configured to collect and store information intended for the client and provide the stored information to the client. The system may further include a client status processor configured to process the status information associated with the client and to provide the status information to the client proxy to control the stateful information.