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. 26, 2001
Filed:
Sep. 22, 1998
Ghislaine Couland, Nice, FR;
Guerney Douglass Holloway Hunt, Yorktown Heights, NY (US);
Eric Michel Levy-Abegnoli, Nice, FR;
Daniel Georges Jean-Marie Mauduit, Nice, FR;
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and system for building scaleable TCP/IP services such as a cluster web server out of a switch or switched network such as an ATM switch or ATM switched network. For example, a distributed large scale TCP router can be built using an ATM switch network. The scaled services can be presented as a single service to clients. The scaleable services can balance the load on the individual servers in the cluster. The clients can be directly or indirectly connected to the switch or switched network. One version includes two separate components: a Control Engine (CE); and a Forwarding Engine (FE). The Control Engine is in charge of assigning a connection to a server and forwarding information about the assigned server and connection to the Forwarding Engine. The Forwarding Engine applies the assignments received from the Control Engine to map a TCP connection onto a switched ATM connection. At the end, the Forwarding Engine communicates the connection termination event back to the Control Engine. A preferred embodiment takes advantage of the switched nature of ATM networks to shortcut paths from clients to servers, wherever possible. Using ATM shortcuts can increase performance by several order of magnitude, while providing efficient distribution of the load balancing function.