Communication stack for network communication and routing

Abstract

A communication stack enables computers implementing it to send, receive, or route network communications. The communication stack includes a message layer, a communication layer, a security layer, and a transport protocol layer, with plug-in transport protocol modules and plug-in security protocol modules. Each of the origin computer, target computer, and routing computers involved in delivering a message implements the communication stack. An application on the origin computer calls the message layer of the computer to send messages to a target computer and identifies routing computers on the route for delivering the message to the target computer. The message layer calls the communication layer to establish a connection to the target computer. The communication layer uses the transport protocol layer to establish an initial connection with the target computer, and uses the security layer to negotiate security parameters and to handle secured communications between the origin and target computers.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] This invention relates generally to computer networks, and more particularly to a communication infrastructure that can be implemented in computers for sending, routing, or receiving network communications. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] In some networking scenarios, there are needs for computers located in different domains or disparate networks and having different platforms and networking capabilities to talk to one another. For instance, the testing of computer networking and application interactions often involve getting one computer with certain testing configuration to interact with another computer with a similar or different testing configuration. For instance, in a test of distributed client-server interactions, one computer that supports only Internet Protocol Version 4 may try to communicate with another computer that supports only Internet Protocol Version 6 over a complicated network topology that might include firewalls, multiple domains, et...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a communication stack infrastructure that allows computers to send, receive, or route network communications. The stack includes a message layer, a communication layer, a security layer, and a transport protocol layer. The transport layer has pluggable transport protocol modules for sending messages, and the security layer has pluggable security protocol modules for handling security operations. The pluggable framework makes the communication stack flexible and extendible. The invention allows for easy communication between different computers implementing the same communication stack. The technical effect of the invention is to provide a reliable and flexible infrastructure for network communications.

Problems solved by technology

One major issue for such communications is that the two computers may not even be able to form a connection with each other through regular network links.

In other words, the two machines may not have direct network connectivity.

For instance, the computers may be located on two different networks that have not established trust and thus does not allow messages to be routable cross the networks.

Also, the two computers may support different transport protocols and thus cannot directly send or receive messages from each other.

Moreover, even if the two machines can form an initial connection, there are other issues that have to be addressed before they can effectively communicate with each other.

Also, in some cases one or both computers involved in the network communications may be down or otherwise unable to send or receive messages, and the reliability of the delivery of communication messages will be a concern.

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