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. 30, 2007
Filed:
Apr. 26, 2002
William W. Buchanan, Wake Forest, NC (US);
Simon C. Chu, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
William J. Piazza, Holly Springs, NC (US);
David B. Rhoades, Apex, NC (US);
Linda A. Riedle, Apex, NC (US);
William W. Buchanan, Wake Forest, NC (US);
Simon C. Chu, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
William J. Piazza, Holly Springs, NC (US);
David B. Rhoades, Apex, NC (US);
Linda A. Riedle, Apex, NC (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A network and method for servicing simultaneously pending boot image download requests in a multi-client, networked environment. A boot image server on the network is configured to satisfy boot image sessions initiated by one or more client systems on the network. The image server is configured to prioritize requests from different clients to minimize or reduce the network's average download time, which represents the amount of time required to boot a theoretical average client. In one embodiment, the image server is configured to minimize the average download time by prioritizing client requests according to the amount of time required to complete a each client's download such that requests from clients with short remaining download times are given higher priority and, conversely, request from clients with long remaining download times are given lower priority. The amount of download time remaining is estimated by maintaining a log the response time (round trip delay) of recently transmitted packets for each client. In one embodiment, a rolling average of recent response times is used to provide an estimate of the client's overall response time. The image server also tracks the size of the image file remaining to be downloaded for each client. Using these two parameters, the image server estimates the remaining time to download the image file and prioritizes the processing of outstanding packet requests based thereon.