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:
Dec. 03, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 18, 1999
RamKrishna Vepa, Danville, CA (US);
Roman G. Baker, San Jose, CA (US);
Sameer Nanda, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
3Com Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A method for selecting a network interface card (NIC) to be used to send and receive data packets in an Internetwork Protocol Exchange (IPX) environment using a server computer system having a plurality of NICs coupled thereto. An outgoing data packet is addressed using an IPX address and a socket number. A load balancing scheme is executed in order to select a NIC from the plurality of NICs. In one embodiment, the load balancing scheme is a function of the IPX address; in alternate embodiments, the load balancing scheme is a function of the IPX address and either the destination or source socket number. The media access control (MAC) address that represents the selected NIC is inserted in the outgoing data packet. The data packet is then sent using the selected NIC. In one embodiment, the present invention also provides a system and method for fault tolerance and fail over support. The plurality of NICs each include a filter that is adapted to mask a portion of a MAC address in an incoming data packet received at a NIC such that the MAC address in the incoming data packet is equivalent to the MAC address representing the NIC.