Patent Application
20180338018
The present application claims priority from Indian Patent Application No. 201711017484 filed on 18 May, 2017 the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
The present subject matter described herein, in general, relates to facilitate communication between at least two devices operating on a distinct communication protocols via a Hybrid middleware device.
Communication protocols support has always been a challenge in a field of telecommunication. This is because different devices are operated on distinct communication protocols and thus becomes cumbersome to integrate the devices in order to facilitate communication amongst such devices. To cope up with the challenge, people are either forced to make changes in existing setup/software to facilitate the communication or need to use multiple gateways and/or devices to support different devices operating on distinct communication protocols. However, such changes in the existing setup/software and use multiple gateways and/or devices may lead to a complex communication architecture and incur higher cost.
Before the present systems and methods, are described, it is to be understood that this application is not limited to the particular systems, and methodologies described, as there can be multiple possible embodiments which are not expressly illustrated in the present disclosure. It is also to be understood that the terminology used in the description is for the purpose of describing the particular versions or embodiments only, and is not intended to limit the scope of the present application. This summary is provided to introduce concepts related to systems and methods for facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on a distinct communication protocols and the concepts are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify essential features of the claimed subject matter nor is it intended for use in limiting the scope of the claimed subject matter.
In one implementation, a Hybrid middleware device for facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on a distinct communication protocols is disclosed. The Hybrid middleware device may comprise a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The processor may execute a plurality of modules present in the memory. The plurality of modules may comprise an analyzer and interpreter module and a protocol stack module. The analyzer and interpreter module may receive a first set of data packets, from a first device, to be transmitted to a second device. In one aspect, the first set of data packets may be received in a format associated to the first set of communication protocols. It may be understood that the first device may be operative on a first set of communication protocols. The analyzer and interpreter module may further determine a second set of communication protocols supported by the second device upon referring to a protocol configuration mapping file. In one aspect, the second set of communication protocols may be distinct from the first set of communication protocols. The protocol stack module may convert the first set of data packets into a second set of data packets. In one aspect, the second set of data packets may be converted in a converted format associated to at least one of the second set of communication protocols. The analyzer and interpreter module may further forward the converted format, of the second set of data packets, to the second device thereby facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on a distinct communication protocols.
In another implementation, a method for facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on a distinct communication protocols is disclosed. In order to facilitate the communication, a first set of data packets may be received from a first device. It may be understood that the first set of data packets is to be transmitted to a second device. In one aspect, the first set of data packets may be received in a format associated to the first set of communication protocols. It may be understood that the first device may be operative on a first set of communication protocols. Upon receiving the first set of data packets, a second set of communication protocols, supported by the second device, may be determined upon referring to a protocol configuration mapping file. In one aspect, the second set of communication protocols may be distinct from the first set of communication protocols. Subsequent to the determination of the second set of communication protocols, the first set of data packets may be converted into a second set of data packets. In one aspect, the second set of data packets may be converted in a converted format associated to at least one of the second set of communication protocols. Post conversion, the converted format, of the second set of data packets, may be forwarded to the second device thereby facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on a distinct communication protocols. In one aspect, the aforementioned method for facilitating the communication between the at least two devices operating on the distinct communication protocols may be performed by a processor using programmed instructions stored in a memory.
In yet another implementation, non-transitory computer readable medium embodying a program executable in a computing device for facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on a distinct communication protocols is disclosed. The program may comprise a program code for receiving a first set of data packets, from a first device, to be transmitted to a second device, wherein the first set of data packets is received in a format associated to the first set of communication protocols, and wherein the first device operative on a first set of communication protocols. The program may further comprise a program code for determining a second set of communication protocols supported by the second device upon referring to a protocol configuration mapping file, wherein the second set of communication protocols is distinct from the first set of communication protocols. The program may further comprise a program code for converting the first set of data packets into a second set of data packets, wherein the second set of data packets is converted in a converted format associated to at least one of the second set of communication protocols. The program may further comprise a program code for forwarding the converted format, of the second set of data packets, to the second device thereby facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on a distinct communication protocols.
The foregoing detailed description of embodiments is better understood when read in conjunction with the appended drawings. For the purpose of illustrating the disclosure, example constructions of the disclosure are shown in the present document; however, the disclosure is not limited to the specific methods and apparatus disclosed in the document and the drawings.
The detailed description is given with reference to the accompanying figures. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference number identifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. The same numbers are used throughout the drawings to refer like features and components.
Some embodiments of this disclosure, illustrating all its features, will now be discussed in detail. The words “comprising,” “having,” “containing,” and “including,” and other forms thereof, are intended to be equivalent in meaning and be open ended in that an item or items following any one of these words is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of such item or items, or meant to be limited to only the listed item or items. It must also be noted that as used herein and in the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include plural references unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Although any systems and methods similar or equivalent to those described herein can be used in the practice, the exemplary, systems and methods are now described. The disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the disclosure, which may be embodied in various forms.
Various modifications to the embodiment will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art and the generic principles herein may be applied to other embodiments. However, one of ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that the present disclosure is not intended to be limited to the embodiments illustrated, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and features described herein.
The proposed invention is a Hybrid middleware device for facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on distinct communication protocols is disclosed. It may be understood that the Hybrid middleware device can either a hardware or a software, or a combination of hardware components and software modules. The Hybrid middleware device may facilitate a user to handle multiple devices, manufactured by different vendors, for data communication. It may be noted that each device may be operated on a distinct communication protocol than other device. Examples of the device may include, but not limited to, Internet of Things (IoT) device and IoT gateways. Examples of the communication protocol may include, but not limited to, MOTT, REST, AMQP, XMPP, and SOAP.
In order to facilitate the data communication among multiple devices operating on distinct communication protocols, the Hybrid middleware device may act as an intermediator device through which each data packet is transmitted from a source device to a destination device. It may be understood that a data packet transmitted is received in a format associated to a communication protocol supported by the source device. Upon receipt of the data packet from the source device, the Hybrid middleware device converts the format of the data packet in accordance with the communication protocol supported by the destination device. Post conversion, the Hybrid middleware device forwards the data packet, in converted format, to the destination device thereby facilitating communication between the at least two devices operating on the distinct communication protocols.
While aspects of described system and method for facilitating the communication between the at least two devices operating on the distinct communication protocols may be implemented in any number of different computing systems, environments, and/or configurations, the embodiments are described in the context of the following exemplary Hybrid middleware device.
Referring now to
Although the present disclosure is explained considering that the Hybrid middleware device 102 is implemented on a server, it may be understood that the Hybrid middleware device 102 may be implemented in a variety of computing systems, such as a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a notebook, a workstation, a mainframe computer, a server, a network server, a cloud-based computing environment. It will be understood that the Hybrid middleware device 102 may be accessed by multiple users through one or more user devices 104-1, 104-2 . . . 104-N, collectively referred to as user 104 or stakeholders, hereinafter, or applications residing on the user devices 104. In one implementation, the Hybrid middleware device 102 may comprise the cloud-based computing environment in which a user may operate individual computing systems configured to execute remotely located applications. Examples of the user devices 104 may include, but are not limited to, a IoT device, IoT gateway, portable computer, a personal digital assistant, a handheld device, and a workstation. The user devices 104 are communicatively coupled to the Hybrid middleware device 102 through a network 106.
In one implementation, the network 106 may be a wireless network, a wired network or a combination thereof. The network 106 can be implemented as one of the different types of networks, such as intranet, local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), the internet, and the like. The network 106 may either be a dedicated network or a shared network. The shared network represents an association of the different types of networks that use a variety of protocols, for example, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), and the like, to communicate with one another. Further the network 106 may include a variety of network devices, including routers, bridges, servers, computing devices, storage devices, and the like.
Referring now to
The I/O interface 204 may include a variety of software and hardware interfaces, for example, a web interface, a graphical user interface, and the like. The I/O interface 204 may allow the Hybrid middleware device 102 to interact with the user directly or through the user devices 104. Further, the I/O interface 204 may enable the Hybrid middleware device 102 to communicate with other computing devices, such as web servers and external data servers (riot shown). The I/O interface 204 can facilitate multiple communications within a wide variety of networks and protocol types, including wired networks, for example, LAN, cable, etc., and wireless networks, such as WLAN, cellular, or satellite. The I/O interface 204 may include one or more ports for connecting a number of devices to one another or to another server.
The memory 206 may include any computer-readable medium or computer program product known in the art including, for example, volatile memory, such as static random access memory (SRAM) and dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and/or non-volatile memory, such as read only memory (ROM), erasable programmable ROM, flash memories, hard disks, optical disks, and magnetic tapes. The memory 206 may include modules 208 and data 210.
The modules 208 include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., which perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. In one implementation, the modules 208 may include an analyzer and interpreter module 212, a protocol stack module 214, and other modules 216. The other modules 216 may include programs or coded instructions that supplement applications and functions of the Hybrid middleware device 102. The modules 208 described herein may be implemented as software modules that may be executed in the cloud-based computing environment of the Hybrid middleware device 102.
The data 210, amongst other things, serves as a repository for storing data processed, received, and generated by one or more of the modules 208. The data 210 may also include a protocol stack library 218 and other data 220. The other data 220 may include data generated as a result of the execution of one or more modules in the other modules 216.
As there are various challenges observed in the existing art, the challenges necessitate the need to build the Hybrid middleware device 102 for facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on distinct communication protocols. It may be understood that the Hybrid middleware device 102 is combination of hardware and/or software module that may facilitate the user to handle multiple IoT devices/gateways from different vendors, wherein the IoT devices/gateways are using distinct communication protocols. In order to facilitate the communication, at first, a user may use the user device 104 to access the Hybrid middleware device 102 via the I/O interface 204. The user may register them using the I/O interface 204 to use the Hybrid middleware device 102. In one aspect, the user may access the I/O interface 204 of the Hybrid middleware device 102. In order to facilitate the communication, the Hybrid middleware device 102 may employ the analyzer and interpreter module 212 the protocol stack module 214. The detail functioning of the modules is described below with the help of figures.
The analyzer and interpreter module 212 receives a first set of data packets, from a first device, to be transmitted to a second device. In one aspect, the first set of data packets may be received in a format associated to the first set of communication protocols. It may be understood that the first device may be operative on a first set of communication protocols stored in the protocol stack library 218. Examples of a device including the first device and the second device may include, but not limited to, Internet of Things (IoT) device and IoT gateway. Examples of the communication protocol may include, but not limited to, MOTT, REST, AMQP, XMPP, and SOAP.
After receiving the first set of data packets, the analyzer and interpreter module 212 determines a second set of communication protocols supported by the second device. It may be understood that the second set of communication protocols is distinct from the first set of communication protocols. The second set of communication protocols may be determined upon referring to a protocol configuration mapping file. In one aspect, the protocol configuration mapping file may comprise mapping of one or more communication protocols supported by the first device and the second device. In other words, the protocol configuration mapping file indicates communication protocol usage information by each device. This communication protocol usage information is further used as an input by the analyzer and interpreter module 212 during conversion of the first set of data packets as per the communication protocol used by the second device. It may be noted that since the protocol configuration mapping file stores the communication protocol usage information, the user may anytime update the protocol configuration mapping file with an updated communication protocol usage information pertaining to any device. In addition to the above, the protocol configuration mapping file may further comprise an identification address of the second device to whom the data packet(s) is to be forwarded and communication protocol(s) supported by the second device.
Referring now to the
It is to be noted that the Hybrid middleware device 102 receives the data packets from the IoT device 302 in a format associated to the MQTT protocol. Upon receipt of the data packets, the analyzer and interpreter module 212 determines a protocol supported by the IoT gateway 304. The Hybrid middleware device 102 forwards the data packets to the IoT gateway 304, if the IoT gateway 304 also supports the MQTT protocol. Since the IoT gateway 304 is operated on the REST protocol, the analyzer and interpreter module 212 determines the communication protocol as REST protocol. Based on determination of the communication protocol supported by the IoT gateway 304, the Hybrid middleware device 102 forwards a request to the protocol stack module 214 for converting the data packets, in MQTT format, to data packets in REST format.
Based on the above, the protocol stack module 214 converts the first set of data packets into a second set of data packets. The second set of data packets may be converted in a converted format associated to at least one of the second set of communication protocols. The protocol stack module 214 converts the first set of data packets based on at least one predefined conversion function, corresponding to each communication protocol, stored in the protocol stack library 218. Once the first set of data packets is converted into the second set of data packets, the analyzer and interpreter module 212 then forwards the converted format, of the second set of data packets, to the second device 304.
In order to explain the above, consider the example same as aforementioned. Since the IoT gateway 304 is operated on the REST protocol different than the MQTT protocol, the protocol stack module 214 converts the format of the data packet, associated to the REST protocol, into a format associated to the REST protocol upon referring to the protocol stack library 218. Post conversion, the analyzer and interpreter module 212 forwards the format of the data packets, associated to the REST protocol, to the IoT gateway 304. The data packets, post conversion, are then received by the second transceiver 308 present in the IoT gateway 308. Thus, in this manner, the Hybrid middleware device 102 facilitates the data communication between at least two devices operating on the distinct communication protocols.
Though the above description is described with respect to an exemplary embodiment, wherein the transmission of the data packets between the first device and the second device has occurred via the Hybrid middleware device 102. It may be noted that there can be various other embodiments of the proposed Hybrid middleware device 102 which are described with the help of their respective figures.
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The order in which the method 1000 is described is not intended to be construed as a limitation, and any number of the described method blocks can be combined in any order to implement the method 1000 or alternate methods. Additionally, individual blocks may be deleted from the method 1000 without departing from the spirit and scope of the subject matter described herein. Furthermore, the method can be implemented in any suitable hardware, software, firmware, or combination thereof. However, for ease of explanation, in the embodiments described below, the method 1000 may be considered to be implemented as described in the Hybrid middleware device 102.
At block 1002, a first set of data packets may be received from a first device. The first set of data packets received is to be transmitted to a second device. In one aspect, the first set of data packets may be received in a format associated to the first set of communication protocols. It may be understood that the first device may be operative on a first set of communication protocols. In one implementation, the first set of data packets may be received by the analyzer and interpreter module 212.
At block 1004, a second set of communication protocols supported by the second device may be determined upon referring to a protocol configuration mapping file. In one aspect, the second set of communication protocols is distinct from the first set of communication protocols. In one implementation, the second set of communication protocols may be determined by the analyzer and interpreter module 212.
At block 1006, the first set of data packets may be converted into a second set of data packets. In one aspect, the second set of data packets may be converted in a converted format associated to at least one of the second set of communication protocols. In one implementation, the first set of data packets may be converted by the protocol stack module 214.
At block 1008, the converted format, of the second set of data packets, may be forwarded to the second device thereby facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on distinct communication protocols. In one implementation, the converted format may be forwarded by the analyzer and interpreter module 212.
Exemplary embodiments discussed above may provide certain advantages. Though not required to practice aspects of the disclosure, these advantages may include those provided by the following features.
Some embodiments enable a system and a method to facilitate data communication where multiple IoT gateways/devices of different protocols are used.
Some embodiments enable a system and a method to provide a single hardware/software solution for integration of devices operating on any communication protocol.
Some embodiments enable a system and a method to reduce effort and cost of installing separate gateway(s) for facilitating data communication amongst devices operating on different communication protocols.
Some embodiments enable a system and a method to avoids/reduces maintenance of separate servers for different communication protocols.
Some embodiments enable a system and a method to serve Business to Business model operations where two different enterprises are using distinct protocols and wanted to get collaborate with each other.
Although implementations for methods and systems for facilitating communication between at least two devices operating on distinct communication protocols have been described in language specific to structural features and/or methods, it is to be understood that the appended claims are not necessarily limited to the specific features or methods described. Rather, the specific features and methods are disclosed as examples of implementations for facilitating the communication between the at least two devices.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 201711017484 | May 2017 | IN | national |
