Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer-to-computer data routing – Least weight routing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-04
2001-11-06
Luu, Le Hien (Department: 2152)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer-to-computer data routing
Least weight routing
C709S241000, C709S201000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06314447
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic networks, and relates more particularly to a system and method for determining processing capabilities of devices in an electronic network.
2. Description of the Background Art
Implementing an effective method for utilizing processing capabilities of electronic devices within an electronic network is a significant consideration for manufacturers and designers of contemporary electronic systems. An electronic device in a distributed electronic network may advantageously communicate with other remote electronic devices in the network to share and substantially increase the resources available to individual devices in the network. For example, an electronic network may be implemented in a user's home to enable flexible and beneficial sharing of resources between various consumer electronic devices, such as personal computers, digital video disk devices, digital set-top boxes for digital broadcasting, television sets, and audio playback systems.
Managing and controlling a network of electronic devices may create substantial challenges for designers of electronic networks. For example, enhanced demands for increased functionality and performance may require more system processing power and require additional hardware resources across the network. An increase in processing or hardware requirements may also result in a corresponding detrimental economic impact due to increased production costs and operational inefficiencies. Furthermore, efficiently accessing the increased functionality may pose certain problems.
Network size is also a factor that affects the control and management of an electronic network. Communications in an electronic network typically become more complex as the number of individual devices or nodes increases. Assume that a particular device on an electronic network is defined as a local device with local software elements, and other devices on the electronic network are defined as remote devices with remote software elements. Accordingly, a local software module on the local device may need to communicate with various remote software elements on remote devices across the electronic network. However, successfully managing a substantial number of electronic devices across a single network may provide significant benefits to a system user.
Furthermore, enhanced device capability to perform various advanced processing functions may provide additional benefits to a system user, but may also place increased demands on the control and management of the various devices in the electronic network. For example, an enhanced electronic network that effectively accesses, processes, and displays digital television programming may benefit from efficient network management techniques because of the large amount and complexity of the digital data involved.
In addition, the presence of electronic devices with extended processing capabilities and functionality may present a need for creating efficient techniques to allow discovery of the extended capabilities by various software elements in the network. For example, if an enhanced video cassette recorder (VCR) with extended capabilities is added to the network, then the other software elements in the network may require information about the existence and processing capabilities of the newly-added VCR, so that all software elements in the network may advantageously utilize the extended capabilities of the newly-added software device.
Therefore, for all the foregoing reasons, implementing an efficient method for utilizing processing capabilities of electronic devices in a distributed electronic network remains a significant consideration for designers, manufacturers, and users of electronic systems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, a system and method are disclosed for determining processing capabilities of devices in an electronic network. In one embodiment of the invention, initially, network software in a host device monitors the electronic network to determine whether a system user has recently connected a new device to the electronic network. If a system user has connected a new device to the electronic network, then the electronic network preferably generates a bus reset event to notify interested devices about the presence of the new device. In response, a software module in the host device preferably performs a device discovery process to learn about the new device.
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a DCM manager preferably performs the foregoing device discovery process by querying relevant configuration information stored in self-describing data (SDD) of the new device. In accordance with the present invention, the DCM manager may also concurrently discover relevant processing capabilities of the new device during the foregoing device discovery process. In alternate embodiments, the processing capabilities may be similarly discovered in a query procedure that is separate from the foregoing device discovery process.
Next, the host device preferably begins to actively host the new device which therefore may be referred to as a hosted device. In certain embodiments, the DCM manager locally instantiates a new device control module (DCM) for controlling the hosted device. In accordance with the present invention, the DCM manager also preferably locally instantiates a processor functional control module (processor FCM) for interacting with the hosted device. Furthermore, the DCM manager preferably creates a processor FCM registration and a DCM registration to register the new processor FCM and the new DCM into a local registry. In accordance with the present invention, the foregoing processor FCM registration may include one or more processing capabilities obtained from the SDD of the hosted device or obtained from other appropriate sources
In accordance with the present invention, a device application (or any other software module) may require a given hosted device to perform a particular processing task. In certain embodiments, the device application preferably may query the local registry for a processor FCM registration corresponding to the processor FCM of the desired hosted device. The device application may also query a processor FCM attribute list in the processor FCM registration to examine relevant processor capabilities of the hosted device. Alternately, the device application may utilize the processor to directly query the self-describing data of the remote device to examine relevant processing capabilities of the remote device.
The device application may then determine whether the hosted device has sufficient processing capabilities to perform the required processing task. In many cases, the host device may host multiple hosted devices from the electronic network. The device application may then advantageously perform a first-level load-balancing process by evaluating and comparing the processing capabilities of each hosted device to determine the most appropriate hosted devices based on their relative processing capabilities.
The device application may also transmits a get_load request to the processor FCM to determine a current processing-load status of the hosted device. In response, a loading module of the processor FCM preferably propagates the get_load request to a load analyzer in the hosted device. The load analyzer then determines the current processing load of the hosted device, and returns a current processing-load status to the device application via the processor FCM. In one embodiment, the current processing-load status may include, but is not limited to, a processor load, a memory load, and an input/output (I/O) load.
The device application may then advantageously determine whether the hosted device is too heavily loaded to effectively perform the required processing task. In the case of multiple hosted devices, the device application may perform a second-level load-balancing process by similarly evaluating and comparing the processing l
Lea Rodger J.
Smyers Scott D.
Koerner Gregory J.
Luu Le Hien
Simon & Koerner LLP
Sony Corporation
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