Other

Auspex Systems, Inc.

Inca Technology, Inc.

Network Caching Technology, L.l.c.

William Michael Pitts

Laurence B Boucher

Edward John Row

Stephen E Blightman

Robert E Lister

Joel R Rigler

Walter August Wallach

Don Herron

At any instant, a channel's path signature reflects the last successful path used to access file data. During the course of processing a request from an upstream site currently not connected to the target file, the downstream site will establish a connection to the upstream site and then include in its request response a path signature constructed by adding its signature to the channel's path signature.

Method of using path signatures to facilitate the recovery from network link failures

Method of creating path signatures to facilitate the recovery from network link failures

Large scale high performance file proxy caching sites may be configured to coalesce many client write operations into one very large assemblage of modified file data. At some point the caching site will flush all modified file data downstream towards the origin file server. In some instances the amount of modified data being flushed may be more than can be transferred in a single network request. When multiple network requests are required, the consistency guarantee provided by many filesystems requires that the file either be updated with the data contained in all of the network requests or not be modified at all. In addition, once the first flush request is processed no other file read or write requests can be serviced until the last flush request has been processed. This document discloses methods for performing atomic multi-request flush operations within a large geographically distributed filesystem environment.

Distributed filesystem atomic flush transactions

The consistency callback mechanisms employed by local file systems such as NTFS and distributed file systems such as DDS, NFS and CIFS are extended to provide a shared memory foundation for efficiently broadcasting real-time high definition video from a source object to large numbers of viewers via the Internet. Distributed applications such as video viewing client applications establish connections to a common distributed file system object, and then each application registers with the underlying distributed file system to receive notifications whenever the video source modifies the source object. The data required to update images maintained by viewing clients is included in notification messages. The distributed file system employs a network of proxy cache nodes. Proxy cache nodes receive notification messages (complete with image update data) and update their cached images of the source object and then retransmit the notification messages towards the viewing clients using IP multicast techniques. In this manner, the distributed file system's consistency mechanism efficiently employs network resources to enable the real-time distribution of video content streams.

Distributed file system consistency mechanism extension for enabling internet video broadcasting

A hierarchical distributed search mechanism is integrated into a distributed file system. Traditional file system APIs (create, open, close, read, write, link, rename, delete, . . . ) and the over-the-wire protocols employed to project these APIs into remote client sites (CIFS, NFS, DDS, Appletalk) are extended to enable the dynamic creation of temporary directories containing links to objects identified by search engines (executing at sites 'close' to 'their' data) as meeting the search criteria specified by the first parameter of a search function call. The search function, derived from the standard file system API function create, is added to the file system API.

Full text search capabilities integrated into distributed file systems&#x2014; incrementally indexing files

In a network of digital computers (), a method for facilitating access by a first digital computer () to a file that is stored in a local file system tree () of a second digital computer (). The method includes establishing, by recursively combining hierarchical file system trees () that are exported from one or more NDCs (), a hierarchical domain tree () that encompasses digital computers (B,A and) in the network of digital computers (). A domain manager () receives policy attributes, a new type of extended attributes, and enforces policies specified therein. In a particularly preferred embodiment the policy attributes identify at least one module that must be loaded by the first digital computer () to extend capabilities of the first digital computer () used in processing a file requested from the local file system tree () of the second digital computer ().

Method for creating an extensible content distribution framework

A method for facilitating access to a file in a networked multiprocessor computer system including establishing a hierarchical distributed data service (DDS) domain tree () that encompasses all computers in the network, grafting onto the tree the file system trees () that are exported from one or more Network Distributed Caches (NDC) (). An arbitrarily chosen name assigned to each DDS domain () respectively identifies roots () of the hierarchical DDS domain tree () and of each of the DDS sub-domain trees ().

Method for facilitating access to remote files

Network Distributed Caches (&ldquo;NDCs&rdquo;) ( ) permit accessing a named dataset stored at an NDC server terminator site ( ) in response to a request submitted to an NDC client terminator site ( ) by a client workstation ( ). In accessing the dataset, the NDCs ( ) form an NDC data conduit ( ) that provides an active virtual circuit (&ldquo;AVC&rdquo;) from the NDC client terminator site ( ) through intermediate NDC sites ( B, A) to the NDC server terminator site ( ). Through the AVC provided by the conduit ( ), the NDC sites ( A and B) project an image of the requested portion of the named dataset into the NDC client terminator site ( ). The client workstation ( ) overwrites at least a portion of an image of a dataset that is projected into the NDC client terminator site ( ) from the NDC server terminator site ( ). Only overwritten portions of the projected image are rewritten into to the dataset stored at the NDC server terminator site ( ).

Network system for transmitting overwritten portion of client side node cache image to server site through intermediate downstream nodes updating cache images of data requested by client

A digital computer network includes a network-infrastructure cache that provides proxy services to a plurality of client workstations concurrently requesting access to data stored on a server. A network interconnecting the workstations and the server carries requests for data to the server, and responses thereto back to requesting client workstations. The network-infrastructure cache receives and responds to requests from the client workstations for access to data for which the network-infrastructure cache provides proxy services. A cache in the network-infrastructure cache stores data for inclusion in responses. If the cache lacks data needed for a response, then the network-infrastructure cache forwards a request for the missing data onto the server, and receives data responsive thereto. In one embodiment the network-infrastructure cache converts requests received from clients in a first protocol into requests in a second protocol for transmission to the server, and conversely.

Network intermediate node cache serving as proxy to client node to request missing data from server

A network of digital computers includes Network Distributed Cache (&ldquo;NDC&rdquo;) sites. Each NDC site includes an NDC that has an NDC buffer. One of the NDC sites receives a request to access data in a stored dataset. The receiving NDC checks its NDC buffer for a projected image of requested data. If the NDC buffer lacks the requested data, and if the NDC site is not the NDC server terminator site for the requested data, the NDC site transmits the request to an NDC site that is closer to the NDC server terminator site. When a requesting NDC site and the request receiving NDC site having a projected image of the requested data both have this NDC buffers located in a shared memory, the NDC site having the data transmits to the requesting NDC a pointer to a location in its NDC buffer for the data.

Cache channel at network nodes to pass request and data or pointer to shared buffer

A data storage device disposed in a transmission path between a destination node and a data source stores images of files in a memory. The destination node sends data requests to the source via the data transmission path. The storage device includes a data transfer detector that detects transfers of data from the source to the destination node along the data transmission path. A memory manager of the storage device stores only selected ones of the transferred data files in the memory. A data request detector to the storage device detects requests for data passing along the data transmission path. An interceptor of the storage device intercepts and services detected data requests when the requested data has been previously stored in the memory, and the stored requested data file meets predetermined criteria. In this way, the storage device may transfer requested data from the memory to the destination node.

Request interceptor in network nodes for determining local storage of file image satisfying predetermined criteria

Generally a computer network includes a file server (22), a network (26), and several client workstations (24). Specific network software provides a name server ('NS') (122) to resolve network-name requests. The computer network can also include a proxy for a network service, e.g. a network infrastructure cache (72) that stores files copied from the server (22). Automatic network-name-services configuration adds to this:

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Los Altos, CA, United States of America

William Michael Pitts