Starburst Communications Corporation

The Fantastic Corporation

Other

Darby & Mohaine, LLC

Kenneth Cates

C Kenneth Miller

Kary Robertson

Marc White

Thomas J Gardner

Thomas Andresen

Craig Michelson

Terrance E Bradley

Richard Fiorentino

Alan Rosenberg

The benefits of a multicast-enabled network are realized by a flexible, easy to deploy, software-based solution that does not require reconfiguring of network routers. Systems and methods that implement this solution can perform as follows. A packet is received that was sent by a sender to at least one receiver, and the packet includes a parameter relating to a multicast announce address. A forwarding rules set is associated with the packet if the parameter has a defined value. This forwarding rules set is used to determine whether any of the at least one destination addresses included in the packet corresponds to one of the receivers that has a receiver format that must be converted. In addition, the forwarding rules set defines when a packet should be converted from a sender format to a receiver format before forwarding the packet. The packet is converted from the sender format to the receiver format for each destination address identified as requiring conversion, and forwarded in accordance with the forwarding rules set.

System and method for sending packets over a computer network

This invention relates to a system and method for managing a session during which data is sent to receivers, wherein retransmission of the data to the receivers can be automatically rescheduled if the receiver did not receive some or all of the data. An object of the invention is to send content to receivers that did not or could not receive data during a multicast data transmission session. In accordance with this and other objects of the invention, one aspect of the invention relates to a method of managing a session during which data is sent to receivers. A first message is sent over a network a message to a list comprising at least one receiver, the first message relating to receiving data during a first session. Replies are received over the network from the receivers on the list. Based on the replies received, each receiver on the list that will not be receiving data during the first session is identified. After the first session is complete, a second message is sent over the network to the receivers identified as not receiving data during the first session. The second message relates to receiving data during a second session. In this manner, receivers that did not receive data during the first session can automatically be invited to join a second session for receiving data when the first session is complete. Thus, the second session can serve as an automatic recovery session for those receivers that do not receive data during a regular data session.

System and method for automatically rescheduling a data transmission to members of a group

A data transmission method quickly and reliably transfers data (e.g., a computer file) from a source to recipients. While the frames are being transmitted, negative acknowledgments from recipients are received by the source. These acknowledgments indicate which frames require retransmission. After all frames have been transmitted out, a retransmission is performed by the source for only those frames which the acknowledgments indicate require retransmission. Additional retransmissions can occur. This multi-pass data transfer technique requires only negative acknowledgements to be sent by the recipients. Features include the ability to set the transmission rate and to define multicast groups. Also, it is possible to determine the capacity of links of unknown capacity using a 'multicast network probe' feature of the invention, and to determine the frame error rates of known-capacity links by utilizing the same feature. A 'multicast ping' feature of the invention can be used to determine the connectivity between a source and members of a multicast group. 'Speed groups' can be set up after determining link capacities, or if they are already known, whereby the recipients connected to the source by the fastest links receive all of the data while slower-link recipients receive only a portion of the data, on the first pass. The number of recipients which can receive the data from the source can be greatly increased by using a 'negative acknowledgement collection' scheme whereby 'replication points' (preferably routers) collect individual negative acknowledgements and forward them as a unit to the next level.

Data transmission

The transmission of data (e.g., a computer file) from one or more content sources over a network to one or more replicated servers is scheduled and performed according to the schedule. The content sources request the schedule from a network resource scheduler. The scheduler receives the requests and determines if and how the various requests can be accommodated. The scheduler determines at least a start time and a transfer rate for each of the content sources that can be accommodated.

Scheduling data transmission

Methods for transmitting data

Growing community of inventors

Salem, NH, United States of America

Kenneth Cates