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. 28, 2003
Filed:
Mar. 18, 1999
RamKrishna Vepa, Danville, CA (US);
Roman G. Baker, San Jose, CA (US);
Sameer Nanda, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Thomas A. Maufer, Santa Clara, CA (US);
3Com Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and system for detecting a non-functioning network interface card (NIC) in a server computer system adapted to have a plurality of network interface cards coupled thereto and communicatively coupled to client computer systems in a network. A directed packet is sent from a first NIC to a second NIC, and a direct packet is also sent from the second NIC to the first NIC. The server computer system monitors the NICs to determine whether the directed packet from the first NIC is received by the second NIC. The server computer system also monitors the first NIC to determine whether the directed packet from the second NIC is received by the first NIC. The server computer system determines whether the first NIC is functioning using the results from the monitoring. When the first NIC is determined to be non-functioning, the functions of the first NIC are automatically switched from the first NIC to one of the plurality of NICs. A broadcast packet is sent from the server computer system to the client computer systems. The broadcast packet contains a media access control (MAC) address for the NIC that replaces the first NIC, and each client computer system replaces the MAC address for the first NIC with the MAC address for the second NIC in its memory cache.