Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Remote data accessing – Accessing a remote server
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-25
2003-11-25
Lim, Krisna (Department: 2153)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Remote data accessing
Accessing a remote server
Reexamination Certificate
active
06654795
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a system and method for distributing file accesses over a network of storage device systems. More specifically, the invention relates to a network translation and organizational system and method that receives file access requests and selectively distributes such requests to an appropriate connected storage device system.
2. Description of Related Art
Over the past several years, the Internet has experienced explosive growth. A significant portion of this growth relates to the expanded use of the World Wide Web (the Web). The Web is a group of computer on the Internet providing a distributed hypermedia framework for presenting and viewing multimedia documents.
Web pages may contain a variety of multimedia elements and links to other Web pages. Pages are generally constructed using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) although other document formatting standards may play a role such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and Extensible Markup Language (XML)—and its progeny such as the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) and the Resource Description Framework (RDF).
Once a page is created, the page resides on a Web server system, or Web site. A particular Web site may host a variety of pages. Client computers can access pages residing on Web sites using a variety of commonly available browser software packages such as Internet Explorer (Microsoft), Netscape (Netscape) or other similar product.
The browser software and the server system communicate with each other using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The client issues a request for a particular resource on the Web using a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI); typically in the case of an HTML Web page, the URI will be a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). A URL specifically identifies a particular resource such as a Web page on the Web. The URL will indicate the particular computer on the Web on which the desired Web page resides, as well as the location of the desired Web page on that computer.
A browser software on a client computer generates an HTTP request under a variety of user triggered circumstances such as entering a target URL, selecting a link in a currently viewed page, selecting an item from the browser's history list or pressing the home button. In addition, HTTP requests are generated automatically when other discrete resources are included within a retrieved Web page; for instance, a second HTTP request would be generated for requesting and retrieving an image embedded within page retrieved from an initial user triggered HTTP request.
When the Web server indicates in the URL receives the request, the server parses the location information in the URL. Servers utilize a recursive hierarchical directory structure for storing Web available resources. The parsed location information from the request serves as a map by which the server locates the requested resource. The server formats an HTTP response including the requested resource and forwards the response to the requesting client.
With the tremendous proliferation of Web usage, the volume of requests has overburdened single Web servers. As seen in
FIG. 1
, which illustrates a known server system
180
that deals with this problem utilizing a load balancing server
120
and a cluster
110
of identical Web servers
114
,
118
where each servers stores all Web pages for the site. Dynamic content may be available through database server
130
connected to data repository
140
. The load balancing server
120
is connected to a local ethernet
154
controlled via a router
154
. The system is connected to the Internet
160
through the ethernet
154
and router
154
. End users access the server system
180
through end user computers
170
.
This solution has several disadvantages. First, all Web servers must redundantly store all pages for the single logical Web site. Second, the load balancing server must deal with the flow through for all communication between the client and the selected server in the cluster.
The same content management issues also occur within the context of mulitmedia content servers having a set of file servers and a set of network attached storage systems. Even in load balancing systems, communications must repeatedly flow through the file servers rather than directly between the client and the data storage systems.
The prior art systems do not support the efficient distribution of multiple simultaneous file requests to a single logical server. Further, they do not provide for establishment of direct communication paths between clients and data storage systems. Finally, current systems usually require redundant storage of all data on each data storage system. The system according to the present invention addresses these disadvantages.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to a system and method for distributing file access requests over connected storage device systems. A system according to the present invention will include one or more storage device systems, one or more indexing systems and a gateway system.
When an incoming file (data set) access request is received at the gateway system, it establishes a connection between the computer originating the file access request and an indexing system and forwards the file access request to the indexing system. The indexing system receives the file access request, locates a storage system that contains the file indicated in the file access request and forwards the file access request to the located storage system. The located storage system receives the request and generates a data packet containing file data directed to the computer originating the file access request. As the data packet passes through the gateway system, the gateway system updates the connection between the request originating computer and the indexing system to a connection between the request originating computer and the located storage system.
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Flynn Kimberly
Jones Day
Lim Krisna
LandOfFree
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