Multiplex communications – Data flow congestion prevention or control – Control of data admission to the network
Reexamination Certificate
1996-09-25
2001-02-06
Patel, Ajit (Department: 2732)
Multiplex communications
Data flow congestion prevention or control
Control of data admission to the network
C370S352000, C709S203000, C709S224000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06185184
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates, in general, to data processing systems, and more specifically, to a method and apparatus for facilitating audio communications over computer networks.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The increased popularity of on-line services such as AMERICA ONLINE™, COMPUSERVE®, and other services such as Internet gateways have spurred applications to provide multimedia, including video and voice clips, to online users. An example of an online voice clip application is VOICE E-MAIL FOR WINCIM and VOICE E-MAIL FOR AMERICA ONLINE™, available from Bonzi Software, as described in “Simple Utilities Send Voice E-Mail Online”, MULTIMEDIA WORLD, VOL. 2, NO. 9, August 1995, p. 52. Using such Voice E-Mail software, a user may create an audio message to be sent to a predetermined E-mail address specified by the user.
Generally, devices interfacing to the Internet and other online services may communicate with each other upon establishing respective device addresses. One type of device address is the Internet Protocol (IP) address, which acts as a pointer to the device associated with the IP address. A typical device may have a Serial Line Internet Protocol or Point-to-Point Protocol (SLIP/PPP) account with a permanent IP address for receiving E-mail, voicemail, and the like over the Internet. E-mail and voicemail is generally intended to convey text, audio, etc., with any routing information such as an IP address and routing headers generally being considered an artifact of the communication, or even gibberish to the recipient.
Devices such as a host computer or server of a company may include multiple modems for connection of users to the Internet, with a temporary IP address allocated to each user. For example, the host computer may have a general IP address “XXX.XXX.XXX,” and each user may be allocated a successive IP address of XXX.XXX.XXX.10, XXX.XXX.XXX.11, XXX.XXX.XXX.12, etc. Such temporary IP addresses may be reassigned or recycled to the users, for example, as each user is successively connected to an outside party. For example, a host computer of a company may support a maximum of 254 IP addresses which are pooled and shared between devices connected to the host computer.
Permanent IP addresses of users and devices accessing the Internet readily support point-to-point communications of voice and video signals over the Internet. For example, real-time video teleconferencing has been implemented using dedicated IP addresses and mechanisms known as reflectors. Due to the dynamic nature of temporary IP addresses of some devices accessing the Internet, point-to-point communications in real-time of voice and video have been generally difficult to attain.
The ability to locate, users having temporary or dynamically assigned Internet Protocol address has been difficult without the user manually initiating the communication. Accordingly, spontaneous, real-time communications with such users over computer networks have been impractical. Further, even if the dynamically assigned Internet Protocol address of a user was obtained, it is difficult to monitor whether the client is still coupled to the computer network and whether the dynamically assigned Internet Protocol address is still valid. As such, computer users typically have little more information about a party than the E-address, name, alias, or telephone number of the party, with no knowledge of whether the party is currently connected to the Internet or the dynamically assigned Internet Protocol address of the party.
Accordingly, a need exists for a way to determine whether computer users are actively connected to a computer network.
A further need exists for a way to obtain the dynamically assigned Internet Protocol address of a user; having on-line status with respect to a computer network, particularly the Internet.
An even further need exists for a method and apparatus by which to locate users with identifiers which are familiar to a computer user such as an E-mail address, name, alias, telephone number, etc.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The above deficiencies in the prior art and the previously described needs are fulfilled by the present invention which provides, a directory server utility for providing the dynamically assigned network protocol addresses of client processes currently coupled to the computer network. Accordingly to one embodiment of the present invention, a method of locating users having dynamically assigned network protocol addresses comprises the steps of maintaining a compilation of entries, each entry comprising a network protocol address of a client process connected to the computer network, and, in response to identification of one of the entries by a requesting client process, providing the network protocol address of the identified entry to the requesting client process.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a computer program product, for use with a computer server operatively coupled over a computer network to one or more client processes, comprises a computer useable medium having program code means for maintaining a compilation of entries, each entry comprising the network protocol address of a client process. Program code means, responsive to identification of one of the entries by a requesting client process, provide the network protocol address associated with the entry to the requesting client process.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a server monitors the status of multiple client processes actively connected to the computer network with a method comprising the steps of receiving notification from a client process that the client process is active, and, determining that the client process is inactive if a subsequent notification is not received within a predetermined time interval. The method further contemplates the steps of modifying the predetermined time interval depending on utilization of server resources.
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Comer, Douglas E., “Internetworking with TCP/IP”. vol. 1, 2nd ed. Principles, Protocols and Architecture.
Hutton Glenn W.
Mattaway Shane D.
Strickland Craig B.
Thompson Scott Allen
Kudirka & Jobse LLP
NetSpeak Corporation
Patel Ajit
Phunkulh Bob A.
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