International Business Machines Corporation

Other

Brocade Communication Systems LLC

John Handley Shaffer

Gary Scott Delp

Philip Lynn Leichty

Gary Paul McClannahan

Kevin Gerard Plotz

John Emery Nordman

Jonathan W Byrn

Todd Edwin Leonard

Albert Alfonse Slane

Mark William Branstad

Roch A Guerin

Todd Jason Youngman

Rajendran Rajan

Kenneth Dale Aaker

Oran Uzrad-Nali

Vinod Gerard Peris

Yosef Bitton

Scott Thomas Senst

David Richard Poulter

Victor Firoiu

An apparatus for protecting a digital electronic data processor or stored digital data from damage includes a digital data unit comprising a data storage medium, a protective housing having side, top, and bottom walls defining a closed compartment which contains the digital data unit to shield the digital data therein from environmental damage. Active and passive protection from overheating and data encryption provides further data protection. The housing has at least one access port for supplying electrical power or for information transfer to or from the data unit therein. The port is sealed to prevent the introduction of environmental substances into the housing in the event of potential damage from an environmental disaster or other cause. The invention thus makes possible the safe storage of digital information in a computer data storage system which therefore has substantially increased capacity to survive disasters such as fires, floods, earthquakes, and theft, as well as more common computer problems such as disk drive failures. The invention can employ multiple computer network data access mechanisms that store digital data, including but not limited to Microsoft Windows File Sharing, Common Internet File Systems (CIFS), Network File Systems (NFS), Novell Netware File Systems, iSCSI, Storage Area Network Protocol, and Network SQL Database Mechanism or other data processing units.

Method and apparatus for the enhanced disaster survivability of a networked computer server

A method for accelerating storage access in a network. The method comprises receiving a data record having a plurality of data segments. The data segments are stored in a local memory of a network controller (NC). A virtual write buffer (VWB) entry is assigned for the incoming data record in the NC local memory. The data segments of said data record are reassemble using the VWB. The data record is sent from the network controller directly to an I/O controller of a storage device.

Virtual write buffers for accelerated memory and storage access

A method and apparatus are provided for adding captions to photographs. An apparatus for adding captions to photographs includes a medium for storing a photograph image. A microphone is provided for receiving user spoken words. A voice recognition system is coupled to the microphone for generating text unit instructions. A caption generation unit is coupled to the voice recognition system for storing a caption with the photograph image on said medium. Both a film camera system and a digital camera system are used for adding captions to photographs. In the film camera system, the caption is simultaneously stored with the photograph image on photographic film. In the digital camera system, the caption can be simultaneously stored with the photograph image on digital storage medium or can be added at an earlier time or a later time.

Method and apparatus for adding captions to photographs

A method and apparatus are provided for implementing communications in a communications network. The apparatus for implementing communications includes a system interface to the communications network. A scheduler schedules enqueued cells and enqueued frames to be transmitted. A segmenter segments frames and cells in into cells or frames applied to a media adaptation block for transmission in a selected one of multiple modes.

Communications adapter for implementing communications in a network and providing multiple modes of communications

Method, system and signal bearing medium for configuring an integrated circuit are provided. One embodiment provides a method for configuring an integrated circuit, comprising: providing a user interface for displaying one or more abstract data elements for user selection, wherein the one or more abstract data elements represent one or more controls associated with characteristics of the integrated circuit; receiving a user selection of an abstract data element; validating associated abstract rules for the user selected abstract data element; and validating product rules for the one or more product data elements associated with the user selected abstract data element, wherein the one or more product data elements represent one or more controllable features of the integrated circuit.

Reusable configuration tool

A method and Gigabit Ethernet communications adapter are provided for implementing communications in a communications network. A transmission queue is defined of data to be transmitted. A transmission rate is set for the transmission queue. Data to be transmitted are enqueued on the transmission queue. The transmission queue can be subdivided into multiple priority queues, for example, using time wheels, and a transmission rate is set for each transmission queue.

Communications methods and gigabit ethernet communications adapter providing quality of service and receiver connection speed differentiation

A method and apparatus are provided for scheduling the transmission of cells of a plurality of data streams in a communications network. An earliest deadline first (EDF) scheduler is provided for scheduling the transmission of cells of a plurality of data streams in a communications network to ensure that the connection or data stream with the earliest deadline is transmitted first. Each of the multiple data streams has a delay bound or deadline. Data of each data stream is enqueued to a corresponding data cell queue. A timing wheel time slot based on an identified target transmission time for each data cell queue is calculated utilizing an addition of a maximum delay value. A move forward timing mechanism includes a scan forward feature to identify a succession of virtual connection or data stream cell queues for transmission. A multiple tier cell scheduler is provided that includes at least two scheduling timing wheels. The priority of a first timing wheel is higher than the priority of a second timing wheel. The priority of the second timing wheel is higher than the priority of an optional third timing wheel. The third timing wheel includes a best effort operational mode. The relative rates between data streams are maintained, while the absolute rates of the data streams are increased or decreased in the lowest priority wheel.

Earliest deadline first communications cell scheduler and scheduling

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Rochester, MN, United States of America

John Handley Shaffer