BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates generally to networks, and more particularly, to the topology, configuration and operation of a data beacon pulser (DBP). A DBP offers fast, efficient, and dependable one-way casting/multi-casting of information globally. A DBP can be utilized for transmission of financial data, news feeds, seismic data, and many other applications where dependable and accurate near wire speed dissemination of rapidly changing information is time critical.

Description of the Related Art

The technology powering a data beacon pulser (DBP) is based on slingshot technology as described in U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 62/296,257 and 62/266,060 and in PCT US/16/65856 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INFORMATION SLINGSHOT OVER A NETWORK TAPESTRY AND GRANULARITY OF A TICK.” The DBP can also utilize and integrate into the topology of a global virtual network (GVN) as described in International Patent Application No. PCT/US16/15278 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR A GLOBAL VIRTUAL NETWORK.”

Comparison of prior art for DBP technology is based on the laws of physics, specifically in relation to the speed of light and of how it relates to the transmission of information in the form of data, over various transmission mediums but specifically wire speed over fiber optic cables, via microwave or other wireless transmissions, over copper wire or other mediums. Time and the duration of time (At) are important measures of performance and indicators of the preeminence of one option versus others.

As a further illustration of background, the rules of physics act as a foundation for references made herein to time, latency, wire speed, and other time dependent measures. As time and distance are significant, this invention uses the following baseline for time and distance/time references. Distances herein are measured in miles under the imperial system. Measures of distance herein can be a number with or without commas, and/or decimals or expressed as an integer. One exception for distances herein which do not use the Imperial system is in the Refractive Index of Fiber Optic Cables where the distances are expressed in meters under the metric system. Unless otherwise noted, time is measured in seconds, expressed as integers, fractions and/or decimals of seconds. For example, the granularity of a tick of time can be measured either as a fraction (Every 1/20thor 1/10thor 1/100th) or as decimals (0.05, 0.1, 0.01) of a millisecond. Time units referenced herein may also be finer granularity than seconds, such as milliseconds (ms) and microseconds (μs), nanoseconds (ns), or other. Any granularity finer than microseconds such as nanoseconds (ns) may be important in certain practical applications of this invention but for sake of demonstration, finest practical granularity herein is μs. In computing, the most common measure of time for networking is milliseconds (ms) and for processing is microseconds (μs) or smaller.

The following table illustrates some possible values and their corresponding equivalent conversion.

TABLE 1measures of timeMillisecondsMicroseconds#DescriptionSeconds(ms)(μs)11/10th of a second0.10000100100,00021/20th of a second0.050005050,00031/100th of a second0.010001010,000410 microseconds0.000010.010105100 microseconds0.000100.10010061,000 microseconds0.001001.0001,000

The global internet is a mesh of networks interconnected to each other utilizing standardized network protocols and other methods to ensure end to end connectivity. The majority of the internet is based on Ethernet and specifically, the most widely used protocol is internet protocol (IP) running over Ethernet. The two main types of communication protocols on top of IP in use on the internet are Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP); each of TCP/IP and UDP/IP has their own benefits and draw backs.

Devices connect to each other on the internet as one host communicating with another host. The topological relationships between hosts can be either client-server (C-S) where the clients make requests to the server which may or may not accept the request. If the request is accepted, the server can process the request and return a response back to the client. Alternatively, hosts may be defined as equal peers which communicate with each other in peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges.

P2P and C-S typically utilize round-trip request-response pathways. TCP/IP is the most widely used protocol for P2P and C-S traffic. The speed of an internet pathway is therefore generally measured as round-trip time (RTT).

Information publishers like financial market exchanges share data from their central locations via UDP multi-cast streams or similar methods. For clients in regions far away from the source, receipt of information by a server in that client's region will receive the UDP stream of information, aggregate it on a server and make it available for clients to make REQ-RESP queries for information. Information can also be accumulated in the source region on a source server and replicated on a server in another region in CDN like operations.

Over a long distance the efficiency of TCP/IP and UDP/IP over Ethernet present certain challenges. Techniques have been developed to try to force data to flow down the best path and include OSPF (open shortest path first), BGP routing (Border Gate Protocol) and other peering related technologies.

For those who can afford the high cost, the market makes available dedicated or private lines and related technologies like MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching), Dark Fiber, etc., offer lines with mainly direct connectivity between points with guaranteed QoS (Quality of Service), mitigation against congestion from others, and other assurances.

Optimized financial lines and superfast hardware together strive to make the path and subsequent transit time as lean and as fast as possible. Information services such as Bloomberg which makes financial terminals available to traders also use top of the line devices to make UDP/IP and TCP/IP transport as efficient as possible.

WAN Optimization devices and software work to compress and optimize the data transmitted between the two end points of the WAN. A Global Virtual Network (GVN) optimizes peering, utilizes AI and advanced smart routing (ASR) and other technologies to improve network performance.

All of the above technologies follow the current communications methodology for transmission of data packets between origin and destination with a round-trip back to origin, with transmission times reflected as a measure of RTT or round-trip time.

Infiniband (IB) over distance is also possible with the positioning of two end-point InfiniBand enabled boxes at either end of a dark fiber pathway to realize long distance InfiniBand connectivity. Other network types may offer the same advantages as an alternative to

IB over distance.

Slingshot one-way sending (U.S. Provisional Patent No. US 62/266,060 referenced herein) offers certain advantages to the reliable movement of data at near wire-speed.

There are various drawbacks associated with prior art technologies. Internet Protocol (IP) over Ethernet becomes extremely inefficient over long distances and its utility decreases when there is congestion, poor routing, slower speeds, peering between different markets, or the presence of other events.

Physical limitations of a line also present challenges. Due to the law of physics, transmission of light over fiber optic lines cannot reach the speed of light in a vacuum.

TABLE 2fiber line speed taking into account drag on opticalfiber latency due to refractionmiles/secondmiles/secondfiberin a vacuumthrough fiberefficiencySpeed of light186,282.34126,759.8868.05%

Table 2 compares the speed of light in a vacuum to the speed of light inside of the glass core of optical fiber and is based on data from http://www.m2optics.com/blog/bid/70587/Calculating-Optical-Fiber-Latency. Accordingly, there is a physical limitation to fiber efficiency which establishes a baseline for the theoretical best speed that can be achieved for light to travel through fiber, referred to as wire speed.

While the Refractive Index of fiber optic cables may vary slightly, an average is assumed as follows: Average of approx. 203 m/μs to 204 m/μs vs. speed of light of 299.792 m/μs for an average efficiency of 68.05%.

Therefore, transmission speed over fiber is 126,759.88 miles per second and is the fastest possible wire-speed which can be achieved.

For information exchange, it requires at least two round-trips (RTT). The Request-Response nature of round-trip transmission on today's internet (and corresponding RTT measurements of elapsed time) requires one host to query another host for information to be returned. Accordingly, host to host communication and drag over extended paths creates inefficiencies. But it is not that simple because the packetization of data traffic also leads to inefficiencies. As well as headers, packet size limits, multi-part payloads for files, and other issues.

For example, if using TCP/IP for the conveyance of market information the REQ-RESP RTT model wastes time from the client to the server when all that is required is a one way sending from server to client. Most financial exchanges share market information by UDP one-way streams. UPD/IP like TCP/IP must contend with congestion issues, loss, and more issues endemic to IP over Ethernet. The further away the host which requires the information is from the host which provides the information, the more prevalent the problems and the lower the efficiency of IP. Distance amplifies the problems and slows the information flow in a non-linear progression with slower times over distance.

For example, where CDN content is made available on a server very close to the client, the information from source server still needs to be replicated over distance. While a client may be able to shorten RTT to a CDN server near it (the client), the underlying data still needs to be published or otherwise replicated from a source CDN server. Therefore, this methodology can still have a detrimental effect on the time required for information conveyance and on its availability.

A private line and/or optimized financial sector line may be able to save precious time off the internet time. Such lines are typically hived off from public pathways and so spillover problems and congestion issues are abated. However, congestion issues and other problems endemic to IP can still be prevalent at times.

The UDP/IP multi-cast streams can drop packets during times of congestion or due to other IP issues. In the case of dropped packets, there is no way for the receiver to know that there was a problem and because UDP does not have the same error correction and provision to resend a lost packet that TCP/IP has, gaps of information can occur. And because the intended receiver of UDP/IP packets does not send an acknowledgement (ACK) packet, the sender does not know that the receiver did not receive it.

Using TCP/IP avoids information gaps of UDP/IP but at the cost of speed and the need to retransmit lost, corrupt or otherwise undelivered TCP/IP packets. It offers more reliability but is relatively slower and when needed most, during times of heavy activity, congestion leads to higher latency and to loss.

Getting complete visibility of rapidly changing information from multiple sources via TCP/IP and UPD/IP is possible but the inherent problems of the TCP/IP roundtrip requirement combined with the potential for unknown loss via UPD/IP presents a less than ideal situation.

Because of the interconnectedness of the world and the need for the most current information, speed of information transmission is critical but the information must be complete and accurate. For example, some securities, commodities, currencies or other financial products are concurrently traded on different markets in various regions and the change in one market will influence the activity in another market. This means that a globally traded commodity or currency or other financial instrument requires timely information from multiple markets from different regions to be aggregated in real time.

In the case of publishing of market data, exchanges are local and to get a complete picture traders need to receive data streams from multiple different exchanges, markets, and other places to obtain current information. Therefore, trading houses receive UDP multi-cast feeds from many markets into a consolidation point gathering packets and aggregating them for analysis and further dissemination.

There is a need for rapidly changing information to be made available in a timely basis to reflect market changes as they happen at all places at once. The financial market imperatives are but one high profile example of industry application of Data Beacon Pulser, however, this technology can be utilized by many other sectors, including academic, scientific, military, healthcare, and other areas.

The invention overcomes the distance issues associated with TCP/IP and UDP/IP because the underlying protocol of Slingshot powering DBP does not have the same congestion and inefficiencies problems over distance. In the case of repeat queries to fast moving and rapidly changing information, especially during times of heavy activity, UDP/IP and TCP/IP are subject to congestion events and subsequent packet loss. UDP/IP will simply drop packets without receiver nor sender being aware of this loss leading to imperfect visibility of market info. Data Beacon Pulser addresses this by offering reliability and speed superior to UDP/IP and TCP/IP over distance.

While the financial industry was used as an example of mission critical need for complete and accurate and fast transmission of data, many other industries and sectors have their own criticality around speed of delivery, and in some cases, the sheer volume of data such as in transmission of large medical diagnostic images, this volume of data can also overwhelm IP networks with congestion which leads to slowdowns.

Data Beacon Pulser can be used in financial technology networking (FinTech). It provides advantages over the current state of the art such as UDP one-way multi-casting vs DBP utilizing slingshot. DBP FinTech has important application to price discovery where accuracy, timing, and scope of information are critical to trade decision making as the basis for order execution order/confirmation. The focus on value in financial markets is an example only as a DBP may be applicable in many other industries. Those with sufficient knowledge and skill can utilize DBP for many other applications.

For example, DBP provides the following features. DBP provides one-way Beacon transfer from source to target as regular, constant flashes/pulses address the limitations of client-server (C-S) or peer-to-peer (P2P) round-trip times (RTT). The unlimited file size of DBP address issues with IP protocol packetization of files and data. The ability to send complete file sizes eliminates the need to break a file into multiple parts to be carried by a stream of multiple packets, enhancing efficiency.

The dynamic adjustment of the pulse rate of the Data Beacon Pulser (DBP) is governed by the granularity of a tick with very fine granularity down to microsecond and even nanosecond sensitivity and permits very current and fresh information to be made available. The technology for the granularity of a tick is described in U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/296,257 and PCT US/16/65856 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INFORMATION SLINGSHOT OVER A NETWORK TAPESTRY AND GRANULARITY OF A TICK.” The receiving of information from multiple Beacons and aggregation provides more thorough information which can be analyzed in as close to real time as possible. The backbone exchange server (SRV_BBX) and sling node (SLN) and inquiry server (SRV_INC) at the source region can be programmed to capture and/or fetch information for sending by DBP in as wide or narrow a range as client preferences indicate.

In addition, the integration of DBP is an efficient use of time and resources because remote clients receive information eliminating them needing to request that information over long distance. The elimination of RTT and protocol drag improves performance. Traditional RTT via a flavor of IP uses store and forward framework where packets must be received by a device in full before being forwarded. Beacon transfer uses a cut-through method at its Slingshot core where information is received and forwarded by devices as soon as header information is received. Sending complete files via RDMA vs multipart files via packets is better because it avoids packet bloat, packetization and reassembly which require computing resources but more importantly add drag and added time.

The addition of some processing time to the data flow at the source and at the target region is compensated by a gain in wire speed efficiency of between 92% and 98% at the middle by Slingshot transport. This gain in wire speed efficiency compares with as the approximate 23% to 60% efficiency associated with native TCP/IP transport over a long distance.

TABLE 3Ethernet IP Round-Trip-Time (RTT) versus Fiber Backbone (FBB) Latency:InternetIP RTTPoint-to-PointFBB—one wayLocationsmin./avg.DistanceLatency Wirespeed#FromTo(ms)(miles)MillisecondsMicroseconds1New YorkLondon65/733,46527.327,3352Hong KongLondon174/2175,96947.147,0893New YorkSingapore209.7/2419,53875.275,2454New YorkLos Angeles67/692,44819.319,3125New YorkTokyo142/1726,73753.153,1488New YorkFrankfurt73.4/873,85830.430,4357New YorkHong Kong191.6/2538,05863.663,5698New YorkParis82/853,63128.628,6459New YorkSydney233/2619,94678.578,46310Los AngelesLondon131/1445,44743.042,97111Los AngelesHong Kong168/1687,24557.257,15512Los AngelesSingapore193/2158,78869.369,32813Los AngelesSydney163/1667,49759.159,14314LondonSydney294/29810,57183.483,39415LondonSingapore172/1886,74853.253,23516LondonFrankfurt9/203963.13,12417TokyoHong Kong43/551,78814.114,10518TokyoLondon207/2385,93646.846,80019Hong KongSingapore30/311,60912.712,69320Point AA + 100 miles-ms1000.878921Point AA + 1000 miles-ms1,0007.97,88922Point AA + 12000 miles-ms12,00094.794,667Sources for Data:https://www.sprint.net/lg/lg_start.phphttp://www.verizonenterprise.com/about/network/latency/#latencyhttps://wondernetwork.com/pings/Hong + Konghttps://ipnetwork.bgtmo.ip.att.net/pws/network_delay.htmlhttps://ipnetwork.bgtmo.ip.att.net/pws/global_network_avgs.html

SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE

Systems and methods for providing data beacons are disclosed. In some embodiments, the system can include a first node and a second node. Each node includes a read queue, a write queue and a parallel file system. Data is written from the write queue on the first node to the parallel file system on the second node and from the write queue on the second node to the parallel file system on the first node. The read queue on each node receives data from the parallel file system on the node itself.

In some embodiments, the data is written as a carrier file comprising a header, a body, and a footer. In other embodiments, the nodes write data at a set frequency. In some embodiments, additional data is written that contains only information that has changed since the prior data was written.

In some embodiments data is written from the first node to a parallel file system on a third node.

