Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Distributed data processing – Client/server
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-12
2004-08-10
Alam, Hosain (Department: 2155)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Distributed data processing
Client/server
C709S241000, C709S241000, C709S203000, C709S205000, C709S219000, C709S224000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C712S027000, C713S171000, C713S152000, C455S556200
Reexamination Certificate
active
06775687
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer system, and deals more particularly with a method, system, and computer program product for exchanging supplemental information fields between a client and a server using existing communications protocols.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is commonplace today for computer users to connect their machines to other computers, known as “servers,” through a network. The network may be a private network, such as a corporate intranet of networked computers that is accessible only to computer users within that corporation, or it may be a virtual private network such as an extranet of computers that is accessible only to computer users having well-established access rights, or it may be a public network, such as the Internet or World-Wide Web. The Internet is a vast collection of computing resources, interconnected as a network, from sites around the world. The World-Wide Web (referred to herein as the “Web”) is that portion of the Internet which uses the HyperText Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”) as a protocol for exchanging messages. Alternatively, other protocols such as the Wireless Session Protocol (“WSP”) can be used, where this protocol is used for wireless communications.
The user working in a networked environment will have software running on his workstation to allow him to create and send requests for information to a server and to receive and view the results. When the user connects to the Web, these functions are typically combined in software that is referred to as a “Web browser,” or “browser.” After the user has created his request using the browser, the request message is sent out into the Internet for processing. The target of the request message is one of the interconnected servers in the Internet network. That server will receive the message, attempt to find the data satisfying the user's request, format that data for display with the user's browser, and return the formatted response to the browser software running on the user's workstation. The response is typically in the form of a displayable file, referred to as a “Web page,” that may contain text, graphics, images, sound, video, etc.
These are examples of a client-server model of computing, where the machine at which the user requests information is referred to as the client, and the computer that locates the information and returns it to the client is the server. In the Web environment, the server is referred to as a “Web server.” The user may connect his computer to a server using a “wireline” connection or a “wireless” connection. Wireline connections are those that use physical media such as cables and telephone lines. Wireless connections, on the other hand, use media such as satellite links, radio frequency waves, and infrared waves. The user's computer may be any type of computer processor, including laptops, hand held or mobile computers; vehicle-mounted devices; cellular telephones and desktop screen phones; pagers; desktop computers; mainframe computers; etc., having processing and communication capabilities. The remote server, similarly, can be one of any number of different types of computer which have processing and communication capabilities. A wide variety of server computer capabilities exist including high speed, multiprocessors with extensive real and virtual memory. These concepts are well known in the art, and the hardware devices and software which enable use of these techniques are readily available. Hereinafter, the user's computer will be referred to as a “client device,” and use of the terms “client device” or “server” refers to any of the types of computing devices described above.
HTTP, the most widely used communication protocol on the Internet, provides communication capabilities that are basic by design. The HTTP protocol was designed using a simple request-response model where a client issues a request for information, and a server gathers the requested information and sends it back to the requesting client. On the other hand, WSP is emerging as the prevalent communication protocol used for wireless Internet access. WSP is modeled on the HTTP protocol and includes the HTTP functionality, but it is optimized for the wireless environment. (Hereinafter, discussions with reference to HTTP are intended to include WSP unless specifically stated otherwise.) With the skyrocketing growth of the Internet—both in the number of users accessing the Internet, as well as the amount of data transmitted through the Internet—it is advantageous to optimize the interactions between the client and server wherever possible, as well as to provide mechanisms for controlling access to content.
One type of optimization is to have the server provide a customized response to the client (such as not sending data that this client cannot use). The types of information that the server may use in providing customized information depend on the server application. For example, it may be advantageous for the server to know the physical characteristics of the client device. These characteristics may include the size of the client's display, the amount of disk space, and/or the amount of memory on the client device. After acquiring this information from the client, the server can adapt the response based on the size, type, format, or other capabilities/restrictions of the requesting client device, thereby generating a customized response. In the case of a small, handheld device, for example, the server may remove all graphic images from the response if the handheld device is not able to display graphic images. As new types of devices enter the marketplace, the server can be easily adapted to handle the new device characteristics. For example, a small device that has no keyboard but accepts commands from voice input and responds using voice output would likely not be capable of handling any images. The server would preferably customize the response to this device by removing images and responding with text to the client. Or, the server might respond by processing the text file itself using a voice synthesizer, and by sending a media file of the synthesized text for the client device to play.
One type of access control mechanism that may be provided is for the server application to request information prior to even determining whether to respond to the client request. Types of information which the server application may wish to obtain from the client for use in controlling access to content include security-related data (such as session keys, a user's identification, etc.), as well as device characteristics (as described above).
Hereinafter the phrase “supplemental information” will be used to refer to any information which a server may find useful in processing a request from a client.
A challenge in processing client requests is that the information requests are dynamic and typically unpredictable in nature. The server application cannot expect all initial client requests to include the full set of information needed to adequately service the request and/or customize the response. If the server requires additional information which was not included in the initial request from the client, then the server needs to request the additional supplemental information from the client.
There are a vast number of clients and servers in use today, operating according to existing communications protocols. Techniques for exchanging supplemental information between the server and client exist today. A number of problems are associated with these existing approaches, however.
One approach sends one or more error codes from the server to indicate to a client that a supplemental data field must be supplied by the client before the server can respond. These error codes, however, are existing features of the protocol which are then overloaded with new semantics for the supplemental data exchange. The obvious problem with this approach is that clients that do not know about the new and special semantics of o
Binding Carl
Hild Stefan Georg
O'Connor Luke James
Singhal Sandeep K.
Alam Hosain
Clay A. Bruce
Doubet Marcia L.
Won Young N
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