Method and System for Transferring Files

• US 20090106260A1
• Filed: 09/30/2008
• Published: 04/23/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Eshwar, Sathya Sai, Sreekumaran, Dipu
• Granted Patent: US 8,341,285 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30

Abstract

The present invention proposes an apparatus and a method to efficiently transfer large files by splitting the file into smaller portions which may be transferred through a plurality of recipient nodes to a terminal node. The portion of file to be transferred by each recipient node is decided based on a load sharing algorithm. The terminal node may gather the current specifications of the recipient nodes and compute the portion of file each needs to transfer. The source node will get parallel requests from plurality of recipient nodes to transfer different offsets of the same file. The file splits across various nodes may be later merged locally.

Claims

1. A method of transferring a file from a source node to a terminal node comprising:

sending a request from the terminal node to each of a plurality of recipient nodes to request transfer of a respective portion of the file from the source node;

each recipient node setting up a connection to the source node and receiving their respective portion of the file

each recipient node forwarding the portion of the file received to the terminal node; and

assembling the portions of the file received from the plurality of recipient nodes at the terminal node.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the recipient nodes set up the connections to the source node via a wide area network and forward the file portions to the terminal node via a Local Area Network.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the source node is a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server and each of the plurality of recipient nodes sets up the connection to the source node using the File Transfer Protocol.

4. The method of claim 1 comprising obtaining capacity information at the terminal node concerning the capacity of the recipient nodes and the terminal node determining the portion of the file to be obtained by each recipient node according to the capacity information.

5. The method of claim 4, comprising the terminal node obtaining the capacity information by sending a status request to each of the recipient nodes and each recipient node responding with a status response to the terminal node.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the capacity information comprises the network load on the recipient node.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein the capacity information comprises the storage space available on the recipient node.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein a recipient node forwards the portion of file at a preconfigurable time or frequency to the terminal node.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the preconfigurable time or frequency is dependent on the storage space available at the recipient node.

10. A terminal node arranged to obtain a file from a source node, the terminal node comprising:

means for sending a request to each of a plurality of recipient nodes to request transfer of a respective portion of the file from the source node;

means for receiving the portions of the file from the recipient nodes;

means for assembling the portions of the file received from the plurality of recipient nodes.

11. A terminal node of claim 10, comprising means for obtaining capacity information concerning the capacity of the recipient nodes and means for determining the portion of the file to be obtained by each recipient node according to the capacity information.

12. A terminal node of claim 10, comprising the terminal node obtaining the capacity information by sending a status request to each of the recipient nodes and each recipient node responding with a status response to the terminal node.

13. A terminal node of claim 10, wherein the capacity information comprises the network load on the recipient node.

14. A terminal node of claim 10, wherein the capacity information comprises the storage space available on the recipient node.

15. A terminal node of claim 10, wherein a recipient node forwards the portion of file at a preconfigurable time or frequency to the terminal node.

16. A terminal node of claim 15, wherein the preconfigurable time or frequency is dependent on the storage space available at the recipient node.

17. A recipient node for participating in transferring a file from a source node to a terminal node comprising:

means for receiving a request from the terminal node for transfer of a respective portion of the file from the source node;

means for setting up a connection to the source node and receiving their respective portion of the file; and

means for forwarding the portion of the file received to the terminal node.

18. The recipient node of claim 17, wherein the source node is a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server and the recipient node sets up the connection to the source node using the File Transfer Protocol.

19. The recipient node of claim 17, wherein a recipient node forwards the portion of file at a preconfigurable time or frequency to the terminal node.

20. A recipient node of claim 19, wherein the preconfigurable time or frequency is dependent on the storage space available at the recipient node.

21. A system for transferring a file from a source node to a terminal node comprising:

a source node containing the file;

a plurality of recipient nodes each capable of setting up a connection to the source node; and

a terminal node for receiving the file,

wherein;

the terminal node is configured to receive a file transfer request, assign a portion of the file transfer requests to each of the recipient nodes;

each of the plurality of recipient nodes is configured to set up a connection to the source node, receive the portion of file from the source node and forward the received portion to the terminal node; and

the terminal node is configured to assemble the portions of the file received from the plurality of recipient node.

22. A system as claimed in claim 21 wherein the recipient nodes are connected to the terminal node in a Local Area Network and to the source node via a wide area network.

23. A computer program product for transferring a file from a source node to a terminal node, the computer program product comprising a storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instruction for execution by a processing circuit for performing a method comprising the step of:

sending a request from the terminal node to each of a plurality of recipient nodes to request transfer of a respective portion of the file from the source node;

each recipient node setting up a connection to the source node and receiving their respective portion of the file

each recipient node forwarding the portion of the file received to the terminal node; and

assembling the portion of the file received from the plurality of recipient nodes at the terminal node.