The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 30, 1998
Filed:
Oct. 21, 1991
Kay M Kurio, Austin, TX (US);
Tandem Computers Incorporated, Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
A fault tolerant network interface is achieved by providing primary and alternate network controllers, dual transceivers, dual cables and dual connectors. This fault tolerant interface is driven by a logical device driver which controls the physical device drivers for the primary and alternate network controllers. The logical device driver causes periodically polling messages to be sent between the primary and alternate network controllers to determine if a fault has occurred in either of these network controllers. Faults detected are logged and error recovery actions are provided according to the nature of the faults detected. If the primary network controller is found to be faulty, the secondary network controller will assume the physical address of the primary network controller and provides the services of the primary network controller while the primary network controller is effectively removed from the network.