Four-Way Asynchronous I/O Using Dual Paired Buffers for Java-Based Intermediate/Proxy HTTP Nodes in a Communications Network

Publishing Venue

IBM

Abstract

This article describes a technique for efficient processing of large or pipelined requests/responses in intermediate/proxy nodes by using four-way asynchronous I/O using dual paired buffers.

  Four-Way Asynchronous I/O Using Dual Paired Buffers for Java-Based Intermediate/Proxy HTTP Nodes in a Communications Network

   Disclosed is an invention that demonstrates using asynchronous I/O in conjunction with a four-way dual-buffering technique to proxy data VIA an intermediate node in a communications network. Traditional methods of proxing data are replaced so as to manage and use system resources in a more efficient manner.

Communications across a proxy/intermediate node for bidirectional communications requires four I/O operations, which can be paired together as:

Request Processing

1) reading of data from original client
2) writing of data to origin server

Response Processing

3) reading response from origin server
4) writing response to original client

.....(Repeat at Step 1)

Traditionally, these operations are executed in a linear fashion with each step dependent on completion of the prior step. A direct benefit of this technique is being able to provide support for the processing 'pipelined' data', or the grouping of requests into a larger request for serial processing.

Dual-Buffering

Our invention suggests that each pair of methods work in a more parallel manner. This is primarily achieved by associating two buffers with each pair of processing operations for a total of four buffers.

Request Path

A

D

B

G

C

F

Asynchronous Reader

Buffer 1

Buffer 2

Asynchronous Writer

H

E

Asynchronous Writer

Buffer 1

Buffer 2

Asynchronous Reader

Response Path

Proxy Node

Inbound Request

Outbound Response

Outbound

Request

Inbound Response

1

Figure 1: Simplified Proxy Node Diagram

The processing flow for requests and responses is comprised of a respective pathway, which can...