Network-connected devices, resources, and services are proliferating alongside the increasing availability, reliability, and speed of network connectivity and technology. However, at the same time, the complexity of networks, as well as the configuration of such networks, is also dramatically increasing, at the same time as an increasing number network-connected devices are being purchased, installed, and configured by users with little or no technical expertise. Similarly, even in scenarios where resources and client devices are deployed in an environment requiring some level of technical ability, network connectivity and routing, especially when such connectivity traverses multiple disparate networks or links, can be difficult and/or time-consuming.
Several technologies have been created and implemented in an attempt to ameliorate these difficulties. For example, zero-configuration networking technologies, e.g., advertisement protocols, provide for the advertisement of available resources on the network to which a client device connects, and provision of usable network connectivity between such client devices and resources. However, these technologies do not provide connectivity and advertisement between client devices and resources on different links, networks, VLANs, or subnetworks.
As another example, route enablement protocols, such as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), enables a host to instruct a router to open a path such that hosts on a remote network can reach a service on the local network. However, enterprise networks generally disallow such protocols due to security concerns, as the path remains open to all traffic rather than specifically that which is sought (i.e., between a given resource and a device on a different network), and in any case generally provide little or no advertisement or discoverability capabilities as between the available resource and the client device.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds