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:
Oct. 21, 2008
Filed:
Dec. 09, 2004
Chandrasekharan Nilakantan, Cupertino, CA (US);
Gary M. Jaszewski, Los Gatos, CA (US);
Chandrasekharan Nilakantan, Cupertino, CA (US);
Gary M. Jaszewski, Los Gatos, CA (US);
Scalent Systems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides a method and system for managing communication in a data network. The method and system involves monitoring the communication channels at the host level. The hosts are updated with the monitoring information following which they take a coordinated decision in cases of failure of a channel. The data network comprises a plurality of hosts, which are connected to each other through a plurality of channels. A monitor host is elected out of the plurality of hosts to periodically broadcast a system state packet to the plurality of hosts. The system state packet contains information about the state of the plurality of channels and the plurality of hosts for a given channel. Each of the plurality of hosts compares the observed state of channels, as observed by it, with the reported state as reported in the system state packet. In case a host identifies a discrepancy between the observed state and the reported state, it broadcasts a host state packet, updating the monitor host about the observed state. The monitor host, on the basis of the information contained in the host state packet, updates the system state packet and broadcasts the updated system state packet to the plurality of hosts. Based on the updated system state packets, each of the plurality of hosts may select an alternate optimal channel for communication in case a channel fails.