Patent ID: 7721020

Claim:
A method for suppressing redundancy in data transmission over a network, the method comprising: storing redundant data segments and corresponding signatures in a data cache of a transmitting data processing unit (DPU); storing signatures identifying non-redundant data segments in a signature cache of the transmitting DPU, wherein the signature cache is separate from the data cache; identifying if a data segment to be transmitted to a receiving DPU is redundant, wherein the data segment is redundant if the data segment is present in the data cache or if the data signature satisfies a redundancy-suppressing admission policy, wherein the data segment satisfies the redundancy-suppressing admission policy if the given data segment has been transmitted for a predefined maximum number of times; transmitting a label identifying the data segment to the receiving DPU while omitting the data segment from the transmitting, if the data segment is identified as redundant, wherein the label comprises a signature identifying the data segment, and wherein the receiving DPU extracts the data segment stored at the receiving DPU based on the received label; and transmitting the data segment to the receiving DPU, if the data segment is identified as non-redundant.