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:
Jan. 11, 2000
Filed:
Sep. 22, 1997
Stephen Silva, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Thomas Yip, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Michael S Allison, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Fred Sprague, Portland, OR (US);
Richard W Gillespie, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides a scheduling method and apparatus for use in an automated testing system for automatically scheduling and allocating jobs to test machines. The automated testing system may be distributed over a network, such as the Internet, for testing hardware and software. The user interfaces generate jobs in response to selections by the users and output the obs onto the network in the form of data packets. A plurality of test machines are in communication with the dispatcher machines via the network. When a test machine is available to process a job, the available test machine generates availability data packets which indicate that the test machine is available to process a job. These availability data packets are sent over the network and routed to the dispatcher machine designated by the address contained in the availability data packet. Upon receiving an availability data packet, the dispatcher machine determines whether one or more of the jobs on the list of jobs maintained by the dispatcher machine is capable of being performed by the available test machine. If one or more of the jobs listed are capable of being performed by the available test machine, the dispatcher machine instructs the test machine to perform one of the jobs, preferably the job having the highest priority.