Patent ID: 8438281

Claim:
A method for separately accounting for multiple transactions in the same data packets communicated over a network using a Transport Control Protocol (TCP), comprising: receiving, at a service gateway, a TCP data packet with a SYN flag field set, wherein the TCP data packet includes a client sequence number, a header, and a TCP payload; parsing the TCP payload to determine boundary data that indicates a byte location on a boundary between a first transaction and a second transaction; determining a total byte count in the TCP payload; determining a first byte count that indicates a number of bytes in the TCP payload associated with the first transaction based on the boundary data; determining a first proportion reflecting the first byte count as a percentage of the total byte count; determining a second byte count that indicates a number of bytes in the TCP payload associated with the second transaction; determining a second proportion reflecting the second byte count as a percentage of the total byte count; determining a total header byte count in the header of the TCP data packet; determining a first header byte count using the first proportion and the total header byte count; determining a second header byte count using the second proportion and the total header byte count; determining first accounting data for the first transaction based at least in part on the first byte count and the first header byte count; and determining second accounting data for the second transaction based at least in part on the second byte count and the second header byte count.