Tokenized compression of session initiation protocol data

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for compressing and decompressing session initiation protocol (SIP) messages. A serializer and parser compress and decode SIP data structures according to a tokenized binary protocol. The compression/decompression protocol uses tokens that represent message elements of the internal data structures that define SIP messages. Tokens may be assigned to message elements based on various design requirements. Some tokens provide sufficient generality to encode any legal SIP message, while others are highly optimized to match the elements found in most common SIP messages. For those elements requiring specific strings, three dictionaries are defined. Two of the dictionaries are static and are never transmitted; the third dictionary is dynamic and contains strings found only in the specific message. Because the message dictionary is transmitted with each message, and contributes to the size of the transmitted message, the message element tokens are designed to reduce the size of the message dictionary to the greatest degree possible. The compression of SIP messages in this manner is stateless in that it does not require knowledge of the characteristics of previous messages.

1 . In a network that transmits a session initiation protocol (SIP) data stream, a method of monitoring the SIP data stream using a network information gathering device, comprising:
 obtaining a copy of the SIP data stream, the SIP data stream including a tokenized SIP message that includes a list of tokens that represents semantic elements of a SIP data structure generated by a communication device associated with the network;   using a detokenizer, decoding the tokenized SIP message to generate corresponding plaintext SIP data; and   accessing the plaintext SIP data using the network information gathering device.   
   
   
       2 . The method as recited in  claim 1 , wherein decoding the tokenized SIP message comprises identifying the semantic elements represented by the tokenized message. 
   
   
       3 . The method as recited in  claim 1 , wherein decoding the tokenized SIP message comprises identifying semantic elements that correspond to tokens of the tokenized SIP message using knowledge of the semantic meaning of SIP data structures. 
   
   
       4 . The method as recited in  claim 1 , wherein decoding the tokenized SIP message is performed in a stateless manner that does not require knowledge of any previous SIP messages in the SIP data stream. 
   
   
       5 . The method as recited in  claim 1 , wherein the SIP data stream includes SIP data originating from more than one originating device. 
   
   
       6 . The method as recited in  claim 1 , wherein the network information gathering device comprises a packet sniffer that obtains the copy of the SIP data stream. 
   
   
       7 . The method as recited in  claim 1 , wherein the network information gathering device comprises a network analyzer that obtains the copy of the SIP data stream. 
   
   
       8 . The method as recited in  claim 1 , wherein the network information gathering device comprises a debugging tool that obtains the copy of the SIP data stream. 
   
   
       9 . The method as recited in  claim 1 , further comprising obtaining quality of service metrics from the plaintext SIP data using the network information gathering device.