JP2007065828A - Communication data compression method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a communication system by which all applications to be executed by a terminal can reduce data amounts to be exchanged by a communication network without needing any change while storing an interface standardized by a communication data exchange procedure by a local area network. <P>SOLUTION: The compression and development of communication data is operated between the communication data exchange procedure and communication equipment control procedure of a terminal, and when the communication data are transmitted, the sizes of the compressed data and non-compressed data are compared, and one communication data are selected and transmitted from the communication equipment. A standardized interface to be provided in a communication data exchange procedure is commonly used by all applications, and the compression and development processing of communication data is tacitly executed by a data compression algorithm suitable for the communication data, and the compression processing may be operated in the middle of data transfer. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to communication data compression in a local area network in which a terminal connected to a standard communication device such as Ethernet communicates using a standard communication protocol such as TCP / IP.

  A local area network is built and used as a means for exchanging data between terminals in a narrow range such as a terminal connection network in an office or an internal connection network of a cluster computer that performs parallel computation using a plurality of terminals. In a local area network, by sharing data created between terminals, you can share common data, create copies, etc., share information, and use physical media such as flexible disks and CD-ROMs. It is possible to perform the intended work without moving. The local area network that is used in this manner includes a standardized communication data exchange procedure such as TCP / IP included in the terminal operating system, a communication device control procedure such as Ethernet, and the communication device includes a communication network. The communication procedure is as follows. When actually using a terminal, these detailed procedures are performed through a standardized interface for communication data exchange procedures, so the user should be aware of these procedures in any application. In addition, data movement to other terminals can be performed via the communication network.

  In the local area network, a method of reducing communication traffic between terminals by compressing communication data is used. In this attempt, communication data exchanged in the physical communication network is performed by compressing the transmission data before passing it to the standardized interface of the communication protocol and expanding the data received from the interface on the receiving side. The amount is reduced and the use efficiency of the local area network is increased.

  However, compression processing at a higher level than the interface of the standardized communication data exchange procedure is handled by an application operating on the terminal, and a compression device must be provided for each application program. That is, if the terminal user does not use the communication data after confirming that the communication data is a compressed application program, the communication data is sent to the communication network without being compressed. Usage efficiency cannot be improved.

  Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide compressed communication data regardless of which application program is used by the user, and even when the application program performs communication using any standardized communication data exchange procedure interface. It is to provide a method of exchanging between terminals using a communication network.

  The present invention provides, as means for solving the above-mentioned problems, a communication data exchange procedure provided in a terminal, a communication device control procedure, a communication device, in addition to a compression device, and the communication data exchange procedure is a communication device control. Before passing the communication data to the procedure, the compression device uses the compression algorithm that matches the characteristics of the communication data to perform compression processing. In this case, the compressed communication data and uncompressed communication are used. The comparison is made with data, and the smaller communication data is passed to the communication device via the communication device control procedure.

  According to the present invention, when the communication data exchange procedure transfers the transmission data to the communication device control procedure or when the reception data is received from the communication device control procedure, the data body related to the communication performed by the communication data exchange procedure is exchanged. Therefore, the communication data exchange procedure and the communication device control procedure can be handled as data that has nothing to do with it, so that all data can be compressed by the compression device, and the communication data Since this compression processing is executed implicitly by the standardized interface of the exchange procedure, communication with compression between terminals can be performed from any application in the terminals without changing or adding functions.

  In addition, according to the present invention, the compression algorithm to be adapted differs depending on the characteristics of the communication data. Therefore, the compression apparatus selects a compression algorithm selected by the terminal user from a plurality of compression algorithms before the communication data compression process. Selected.

  Furthermore, depending on the characteristics of the data to be compressed, the data size after the compression process may increase. Compare the size of the compressed communication data with the communication data before compression. By sending, it is possible to avoid an increase in the data size in the compression process.

  Embodiments according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram when the compression processing according to the present invention is performed on the terminal side. As shown in the figure, an application 2 is connected to a terminal 1 via a standardized interface 3 (such as a Berkeley socket interface) to a communication data exchange procedure 4 (for example, TCP).

  The communication data exchange procedure 4 is connected to a compression device 5 (including a plurality of compression algorithms such as LZW and RLE), and exchanges transmission / reception data and control information.

  The compression device 5 has an uncompressed data buffer 6 for storing data before compression and a compressed data buffer 7 for storing data after compression, and stores uncompressed data and compressed data, respectively. A communication device control procedure 9 (for example, a device driver) is connected to the transmission data selector 8 of the compression device 5. A communication device 10 (for example, Ethernet) is connected to the communication network 11 and exchanges data with communication devices connected to other terminals.

  The operation of the communication data compression method of the present invention configured as described above will be described.

  When the user of the terminal uses the application 2 and attempts to access another terminal, the data transmitted from the application 2 is exchanged via the standardized interface 3 in the lower layer. Passed to step 4.

  In the communication data exchange procedure 4, as in TCP, fragmentation and generation of a CRC checksum for detecting a communication error are performed, and a transmission data string in accordance with the data format is created.

  The data string is transferred to the compression device 5 and compressed. The compression algorithm in the compression device 5 is selected from a plurality of compression algorithms that the terminal user has determined in advance to match the characteristics of the communication data.

  At this time, the transmission data before being compressed is stored in the uncompressed data buffer 6, the data after the compression processing is stored in the compressed data buffer 7, and the size of each is determined by the transmission data selector 8. In comparison, the smaller data is transferred to the communication device control procedure 9.

  In the case of the present embodiment, it is assumed that the communication device transfer procedure 9 is implemented as a device driver on the terminal side.

  The data selected by the transmission data selector 8 is transferred to the communication device 10, and the transmission data is sent to the communication network 11 according to the procedure specified by the communication device 10, and to the communication device of the recipient determined by the application 2. Try to transfer data.

  Here, unlike the conventional compression method, the application 2 compresses the communication data by using the standard interface as usual without performing the compression process before passing the data to the standardized interface 3. Is possible.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram when the compression processing of the present invention is performed outside the terminal.

  An application 2 is connected to the terminal 1 via a standardized interface 3 (such as Berkeley socket interface) to a communication data exchange procedure 4 (for example, TCP).

  The communication data exchange procedure 4 is connected to a compression device 6 (including a plurality of compression algorithms such as LZW and RLE), exchanges transmission data, and is further connected to a communication device control procedure 5 to exchange control information.

  The compression device 6 is mounted outside the terminal 1 and stores uncompressed data in an uncompressed data buffer 8 and compressed data in a compressed data buffer 9, respectively.

  Further, the compression device 6 includes a data transfer function (for example, a DMA function of a device connected to the PCI bus) (not shown) prepared outside the terminal.

  The communication device 7 is connected to the communication network 11 and exchanges data with communication devices connected to other terminals.

  The operation of the communication data compression method of the present invention configured as described above will be described.

  When the user of the terminal 1 uses the application 2 and tries to access another terminal, the data transmitted from the application 2 is communicated in the lower layer via the standardized interface 3. Passed to exchange procedure 4.

  In the communication data exchange procedure 4, as in the case of TCP, fragmentation, generation of a CRC checksum for detecting a communication error, and the like are performed, and a data string according to the data format is created.

  The data string is transferred to the compression device 6 and compressed. At this time, the transmission data before being compressed is stored in the uncompressed data buffer 8, the data after compression processing is stored in the compressed data buffer 9, and the sizes are compared by the data selector 10. Then, the smaller data is transmitted from the communication device 7 to the communication network 11.

  As described above, when the communication data exchange procedure 4 uses the data transfer function built in the compression device 6 to transfer the transmission data to the compression device 6 and transfers the transmission data to the communication device 7 via the compression device 6, The compression device 6 executes the data storage work in the compressed data buffer 9 and the uncompressed data buffer 8 and the compression processing in the compression device 6 simultaneously with the transfer operation in the data transfer function, thereby performing the processing of the compression device 6. It becomes possible to conceal time.

  At this time, the compression algorithm of the compression device 6 is selected and applied from a plurality of compression algorithms installed in the compression device 6 by the user of the terminal before the transmission data compression processing is performed.

  In the case of the present embodiment, the communication device transfer procedure on the terminal side is generally provided as a device driver and controls the communication device 7.

  The data selected by the data selector 10 is transferred to the communication device 7, the transmission data is sent to the communication network 11 according to the procedure specified by the communication device 7, and the data to the communication device of the receiver determined by the application 2 is sent. Attempt to transfer data.

  Here, as a difference from the first embodiment, since compression and buffer selection are performed on the communication device side, when transmission data is transferred from the terminal side to the communication device side, compression processing may be performed in parallel therewith. it can.

  From the above, in this embodiment, unlike the conventional compression method, the application 2 can communicate by using the standard interface as usual without performing the compression process before passing the data to the standardized interface 3. Data can be compressed.

  FIG. 3 is a block diagram when a plurality of compression algorithms are applied to transmission data in the compression processing of the present invention, and the means for selecting data after the compression processing is implemented outside the terminal. .

  An application 2 is connected to the terminal 1 via a standardized interface 3 (such as Berkeley socket interface) to a communication data exchange procedure 4 (for example, TCP).

  The communication data exchange procedure 4 is connected to a compression device 6 (including a plurality of compression algorithms such as LZW and RLE), exchanges transmission data, and is further connected to a communication device control procedure 5 to exchange control information.

  The compression device 6 is mounted outside the terminal 1, and stores uncompressed data in the uncompressed data buffer 8 and compressed data by a plurality of compression algorithms in the compressed data buffers 9-1 to 9-4, respectively. To do.

  Further, the compression device 6 includes a data transfer function (for example, a DMA function of a device connected to the PCI bus) (not shown) prepared outside the terminal, and all compression included in the compression device 6 is included. The algorithm can accept the transferred data at the same time.

  The communication device 7 is connected to the communication network 11 and exchanges data with communication devices connected to other terminals.

  The operation of the communication data compression method of the present invention configured as described above will be described.

  When the user of the terminal 1 uses the application 2 and tries to access another terminal, the data transmitted from the application 2 is communicated in the lower layer via the standardized interface 3. Passed to exchange procedure 4.

  In the communication data exchange procedure 4, as in the case of TCP, fragmentation, generation of a CRC checksum for detecting a communication error, and the like are performed, and a data string according to the data format is created.

  The data string is transferred to the compression device 6 and compressed separately for all the compression algorithms (assuming that there are four algorithms in this embodiment), and the corresponding compressed data buffers 9-1 to 9 are respectively compressed. The data compressed to -4 is stored. At this time, transmission data before being compressed is stored in the uncompressed data buffer 8, the data sizes of the compressed data buffers 9-1 to 9-4 are compared by the data selector 10, and the smallest one is selected. Then, the data contained in the buffer is transmitted from the communication device 7 to the communication network 11.

  As described above, when the communication data exchange procedure 4 uses the data transfer function built in the compression device 6 to transfer the transmission data to the compression device 6 and transfers the transmission data to the communication device 7 via the compression device 6, The compression device 6 executes the data storage work from the compressed data buffer 9-1 to 9-4 and the uncompressed data buffer 8 and the compression processing in the compression device 6 simultaneously with the transfer operation in the data transfer function. The processing time of the compression device 6 can be concealed.

  In the case of this embodiment, the communication device control procedure 5 on the terminal side is generally provided as a device driver and controls the communication device 7.

  The data selected by the data selector 10 is transferred to the communication device 7, the transmission data is sent to the communication network 11 according to the procedure specified by the communication device 7, and the data to the communication device of the receiver determined by the application 2 is sent. Attempt to transfer data.

  As described above, all the compression algorithms of the compression device 6 are executed on the transmission data, and the data size sent to the communication network is made as small as possible by selecting the data with the smallest data size by the data selector. It becomes possible.

  Communication in an industrial office network that handles electronic documents, multimedia data, etc., and mainly uses terminals connected to the network, and communications in cluster computers that perform parallel computation with multiple terminals connected to the network Providing software and hardware that increase network usage efficiency.

It is a block diagram which shows the Example at the time of applying all this invention by the terminal side. It is a block diagram which shows the Example at the time of applying this invention to the outer side of a terminal. It is a block diagram which shows the Example in the case of applying this invention to the outer side of a terminal and using the multiple compression algorithm in a compression apparatus.

Claims (4)

A communication network controlled by a terminal, a data exchange procedure used by the application executed on the terminal for data transmission, a communication device control procedure for data transmission after the data exchange procedure, and the communication device control procedure A communication device connected to the communication device, and a compression device that performs data compression between the data exchange procedure and the communication device control procedure, and all the transmission data that the data exchange procedure transfers to the communication device control procedure A communication method characterized by compressing and transferring to the communication device control procedure.
A communication network controlled by a terminal, a data exchange procedure used by the application executed on the terminal for data transmission, a communication device control procedure for data transmission after the data exchange procedure, and the communication device control procedure And a compression device that compresses data between the data exchange procedure and the communication device control procedure, and compresses when transmitting data from the data exchange procedure to the communication device control procedure. When the size of the compressed transmission data held in the compressed data buffer is smaller than the transmission data not compressed in the compressed data buffer, the compressed transmission data is selected by the data selector and compressed. If the transmission data size is larger than the uncompressed transmission data, the data selector uses the uncompressed transmission data. Selected, to the communication device, communication method according to claim 1, characterized in that pass the selected transmission data.
A communication network controlled by a terminal, a data exchange procedure used by the application executed on the terminal for data transmission, a communication device control procedure for data transmission after the data exchange procedure, and the communication device control procedure In the compression device that performs data compression between the communication device connected to the data exchange procedure and the communication device control procedure, a plurality of data compression algorithms are implemented, and before the transmission data is compressed, 3. The communication method according to claim 1, wherein one compression algorithm used for compressing the transmission data is selected, and the transmission data is compressed by the selected compression algorithm.
A communication network controlled by a terminal, a data exchange procedure used by the application executed on the terminal for data transmission, a communication device control procedure for data transmission after the data exchange procedure, and the communication device control procedure In the compression device that performs data compression between the communication device connected to the data exchange procedure and the communication device control procedure, when a plurality of data compression algorithms are implemented and compression processing is performed on transmission data, All of the compression algorithms are applied to the transmission data, and the compressed data is stored in the buffers related to the respective compression algorithms. After the compression processing, one of the buffers is selected and the data is passed to the communication device. The communication system according to claim 1 or 2, characterized by the above.

Images