METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR A SET OF NETWORK APPLIANCES WHICH CAN BE CONNECTED TO PROVIDE ENHANCED COLLABORATION, SCALABILITY, AND RELIABILITY

• US 20070220141A1
• Filed: 10/11/2006
• Published: 09/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gary Faulkner, John Fowler, Michael Primm
• Original Assignee: Gary Faulkner, John Fowler, Michael Primm
• Inventors: Faulkner, Gary, Primm, Michael, Fowler, John
• Granted Patent: US 7,529,838 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/042 comprising distributed management centres cooperatively managing the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0681 Configuration of triggering conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0895 Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0811 by checking connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1042 using topology management mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1068 Discovery involving direct consultation or announcement among potential requesting and potential source peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

The invention is directed to a network-enabled appliance. The appliance may aid the remote monitoring of various measured data. The device may monitor a variable or set of variables and output the data upon request. In addition, the appliance may issue alarms, alerts, warning and other notifications when a variable matches a setpoint or undergoes a specified change, deviation, and/or fluctuation. Further the appliance may be operable to communicate with other appliances. The communication may comprise periodic pinging of peer appliances. In this manner, a peer appliance may detect a failure in other network-enabled appliances when an anticipated ping is not received. Further, the communication may enable the establishment of a directory of capabilities of various appliances. In this manner, a group of appliances may perform more complex behaviors by grouping resources. Further, a group of appliances may act to reestablish the behavior of a failed device.

Claims

1. A method of peer-to-peer review between first and second network-enabled appliances, the first and second network-enabled appliances being connected to an interconnected network, the method comprising:

determining the address of the second network-enabled appliance using the first network-enabled appliance, the address of the second network-enabled appliance being associated with the interconnected network;

sending a ping message to the second network-enabled appliance from the first network-enabled appliance through the interconnected network;

selectively responding to the ping message from the first network-enabled appliance using the second network-enabled appliance;

establishing a periodicity between the sending of subsequent periodic ping messages based on information provided to the first network-enabled appliance by the second network-enabled appliance; and

sending subsequent ping messages from the first network-enabled appliance to the second network-enabled appliance through the interconnected network at time intervals based on the established periodicity.