Novell, Inc.

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Drew Major

Kyle Powell

Dale Neibaur

Howard Rollin Davis

Kevin W Kingdon

Neil W Taylor

Cliff D Ross

Mel Oyer

Jozef Chou

Howard Davis

Dan Kiewlich

The present invention allows for the electronic management and enforcement of software licenses. The present invention can be used in a network or non-network environment to facilitate product licensing and upgrades. Further, the present invention accommodates the use of compact disc read-only memory (CD ROM) product distribution. Further, the present invention can retain useful, after-market information. The present invention provides the ability to implement a license policy. Further, the license policy can be implemented or modified without requiring a new version of the associated product. The present invention provides the ability to create electronic licenses. Further, the present invention provides the ability to extract and transfer licenses from an inventory of licenses to a final distribution media. Licenses can be transferred to a reseller in batches. A reseller can extract unused licenses from these batches to generate licenses. An optional companion license can be generated. Installed licenses can be managed and enforced by the present invention. Further, Upgrades (e.g., version and connections) can be accomplished independent of the product. License documents can be used to retain information related to a license. Portions of a license document can be encrypted using a private key and message digests. The encrypted result can be stored in the license document, and examined to validate a license. License documents can be created in batches. One or more licenses in a batch of licenses can be enabled to create a software license.

Method and apparatus for electronic licensing

A method and apparatus for providing a fault-tolerant backup system such that if there is a failure of a primary processing system, a replicated system can take over without interruption. The invention provides a software solution for providing a backup system. Two servers are provided, a primary and secondary server. The two servers are connected via a communications channel. The servers have associated with them an operating system. The present invention divides this operating system into two 'engines.' An I/O engine is responsible for handling and receiving all data and asynchronous events on the system. The I/O engine controls and interfaces with physical devices and device drivers. The operating system (OS) engine is used to operate on data received from the I/O engine. All events or data which can change the state of the operating system are channeled through the I/O engine and converted to a message format. The I/O engine on the two servers coordinate with each other and provide the same sequence of messages to the OS engines. The messages are provided to a message queue accessed by the OS engine. Therefore, regardless of the timing of the events, (i.e., asynchronous events), the OS engine receives all events sequentially through a continuous sequential stream of input data. As a result, the OS engine is a finite state automata with a one-dimensional input 'view' of the rest of the system and the state of the OS engines on both primary and secondary servers will converge.

Fault tolerant computer system

Growing community of inventors

Orem, UT, United States of America

Drew Major