HOST/PATH-BASED DATA DIFFERENCING IN AN OVERLAY NETWORK USING A COMPRESSION AND DIFFERENCING ENGINE

摘要

A data differencing technique enables a response from a server to the request of a client to be composed of data differences from previous versions of the requested resource. To this end, data differencing-aware processes are positioned, one at or near the origin server (on the sending side) and the other at the edge closest to the end user (on the receiving side), and these processes maintain object dictionaries. The data differencing-aware processes each execute a compression and differencing engine. Whenever requested objects flow through the sending end, the engine replaces the object data with pointers into the object dictionary. On the receiving end of the connection, when the data arrives, the engine reassembles the data using the same object dictionary. The approach is used for version changes within a same host/path, using the data differencing-aware processes to compress data being sent from the sending peer to the receiving peer.