Patent ID: 7840686

Claim:
A method for carrying communications over a virtual private network (VPN) connection established between a client machine and a server via a VPN component, the method comprising: periodically determining whether a stream of data being carried over the VPN connection is important; instructing the VPN component to delay periodic requesting of renegotiation of the VPN connection when it is determined that the stream of data is important; instructing the VPN component to resume periodic requesting of renegotiation of the VPN connection when it is determined that the stream of data is not important; after instructing the VPN component to delay periodic requesting of renegotiation of the VPN connection, and after an elapsed time of a predefined time period: determining if the stream of data remains important and, if the data stream remains important: reinstructing the VPN component to delay periodic requesting of renegotiation of the VPN connection; and, resetting the elapsed time to zero; if the data stream is determined not to be important, automatically instructing the VPN component to resume periodic requesting of renegotiation of the VPN connection.