Digital telecommunication network having improved data processing systems

• US 4,274,139 A
• Filed: 04/16/1979
• Issued: 06/16/1981
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/1978
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hodgkinson, Susan D., Homan, Peter
• Primary Examiner(s): Zache, Raulfe B.
• Application Number:
  US06/030,663
• Time in Patent Office: 792 Days
• Field of Search: 364/200 MS File
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/52 Program synchronisation; Mutual exclusion, e.g. by means of semaphores
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass networks security protocols H04L9/40; wireless communication networks H04W

Abstract

A plurality of digital data processing systems are interconnected as nodes in a telecommunication network. When two intelligent nodes are conneected and one local node determines that a process which it is executing requires the use of resources held at the second remote node, the local system sends a request to the remote system. It is desirable that the remote system handle the request from the local system as it handles all other requests so that source integrity is maintained. The local system, in response to a request from a local application program which it is sevicing, sends a corresponding transaction request along a communication link to the remote system. This transaction request passes directly from node to node without going through any intermediate controller. The remote system receives the request and creates a new unit of work. The remote system then performs the unit of work and sends the result back to the local node. The local system receives the result and returns it to the requesting application program.

Claims

1. In a data processing system wherein a plurality of program-controlled data processing systems are interconnected as nodes in a telecommunication network, at least one of said nodes including an input/output device, and wherein each node of the network is capable of processing data according to resources associated with that node by setting up and executing a transaction process in response to each particular data processing request and any related requests presented thereto, the combination of:

means at each node of the system for determining when a local data processing request involves a transaction that requires the use of a resource held at another node of the system,

means at each node for transmitting the transaction request for the use of such a resource to the other node containing that resource,

means at each of said nodes for receiving transaction requests from other nodes in the system and for presenting each received transaction request to the data processing system at the receiving node in the same manner as though such request had originated locally at that node, thereby enabling the local data processing system to perform the transaction process associated with a request from another node as it would perform a transaction process associated with a like request originated at the local node, and

means at each of said nodes for transmitting the data resulting from said process to the requesting node.

2. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1 in which the means for transmitting a transaction request includes means to transform data associated with a request for processing at a remote node into a form suitable for transmission between nodes of the network, and the means for receiving a transaction request includes means to transform data received from a remote node into a form suitable for processing by the data processing system.

3. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2 wherein the means for transmitting transaction requests between nodes include direct node-to-node connections affording uninterrupted communication between nodes.