SERVICES ADVERTISEMENT IN A WIRELESS MESH
First Claim
1. A method of advertising a service provided by a first mesh computing device in a mesh network, the mesh network comprising a plurality of mesh computing devices, the method comprising:
- operating at least one processor on at least one second mesh computing device in the plurality of mesh computing devices to;
receive over the mesh network according to a first protocol an advertisement for the service from the first mesh computing device; and
advertise according to a second protocol the service to a computing device not in the mesh network.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A computing environment containing a mesh network that is adapted to provide a reliable transport mechanism over which services may be delivered. Nodes of the mesh can automatically select routable addresses without conflicts, which allows nodes of the mesh to be accessed, even as the mesh changes through the addition or deletion of nodes. Also, nodes communicate with a protocol that supports service advertisements. These advertisements can identify mesh nodes that supply services, such as file or print servers, for which devices that have not yet connected to the network may be searching. Advertisements can also identify services to be used by nodes in the network, allowing, for example, a node to select a gateway providing a reliable connection to an external network. The mesh network can be used as a transport for communication using protocols, such as TCP/IP, that generally exhibit poor performance when using unreliable transports.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method of advertising a service provided by a first mesh computing device in a mesh network, the mesh network comprising a plurality of mesh computing devices, the method comprising:
operating at least one processor on at least one second mesh computing device in the plurality of mesh computing devices to; receive over the mesh network according to a first protocol an advertisement for the service from the first mesh computing device; and advertise according to a second protocol the service to a computing device not in the mesh network. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of operating a computing device to access a selected service, the method comprising:
operating at least one processor of the computing device to; receive an advertisement from a first node of a mesh network, the advertisement comprising an identification of at least one service provided by one or more second nodes of the mesh network, the second nodes being different than the first nodes; analyze the advertisement to determine whether the selected service is available on the mesh network; and in a response to a determination that the selected service is available on the mesh network, join the mesh network and access the selected service over the mesh network. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A method of operating a mesh network, the method comprising:
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generating a plurality of advertisements, each advertisement being generated from a respective node in a network providing a service, and each advertisement identifying the service provided by the respective node; propagating the advertisements through the mesh network; receiving at a node of the mesh network at least a portion of the plurality of advertisements; aggregating the services identified in the received advertisements into an advertisement of the mesh network; and transmitting the advertisement of the services of the mesh network. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification