Speculative Remote Display

NU 2006-119

Inventors

Peter Dinda*

Sam Rossoff

Short Description

A remote display system that eliminates network round-trip times and allows distant users to control a computer or application with a graphical user interface.

Abstract

Speculative Remote Display eliminates network round-trip time in remote display systems. Remote display systems allow a distant user to control a computer or application with a graphical user interface. However, remote display systems are increasingly being used over wide-area networks where round trip latencies are inherently much higher and vary greater than are those in local-area networks. This new technology from Northwestern eliminates network round-trip time for remote display systems by predicting the screen update events that the server will send and then applying them to the screen immediately. Incorrectly predicted events are immediately reversed when the actual events arrive from the server without a net gain or loss in round-trip latency. Speculative Remote Display works with existing wide-area network infrastructure because it does not require server or protocol changes.

Applications