Patent ID: 6865510

Claim:
A method for measuring efficiency in data communications, comprising: transmitting at least three outgoing probe message from a first system to a second system, the outgoing probe messages having respective sizes KB 1 send , KB 2 send , and KB 3 send ; receiving incoming probe messages corresponding to the outgoing probe messages, in the first system from the second system, the incoming probe messages having respective sizes KB 1 recv , KB 2 recv , and KB 3 recv , wherein KB 1 send is approximately equal to KB 1 recv , KB 2 send is greater than KB 2 recv , KB 3 send is less than KB 3 recv , and Δt 1 , Δt 2 , and Δt 3 are the times between when respective first outgoing probe messages are sent and corresponding incoming probe messages are received; calculating values Δt, KB send and KBrecv from KB 1 send , KB 2 send , KB 3 send , KB 1 recv , KB 2 recv , KB 3 recv , Δt 1 , Δt 2 , and Δt 3 ; calculating a least-squares-error fit of BWsend, BWrecv and LATENCY to the linear modeling equation of Δt=(KB send /BW send )+(KB recv /BW recv )+LATENCY, wherein BW send indicates available connection bandwidth from the first system to the second system, BW recv indicates available connection bandwidth from the second system to the first system, and LATENCY is the delay time of a zero-byte message sent from the first system to the second system and back to the first system.