High performance internet storage access scheme

• US 6,748,448 B1
• Filed: 12/13/1999
• Issued: 06/08/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ramalingam, Harsha, Iyer, Balakrishna Raghavendra, Ford, Daniel Alexander, Menon, Jaishankar Moothedath, Barrera, Clodoaldo, Guha, Saugata
• Primary Examiner(s): Sheikh, Ayaz
• Assistant Examiner(s): ZIA, SYED
• Application Number:
  US09/459,585
• Time in Patent Office: 1,639 Days
• Field of Search: 709/235, 709/217, 709/245, 709/227
• US Class Current: 709/245
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9566 URL specific, e.g. using aliases, detecting broken or misspelled links
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/365 Application layer names, e.g. buddy names, unstructured names chosen by a user or home appliance name
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/30 Managing network names, e.g. use of aliases or nicknames name-to-address mapping H04L61/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Systems and methods of increasing the performance of computer networks, especially networks connecting users to the Web, are provided. Performance is increased by reducing the latency the client experiences between sending a request to the server and receiving a response. A connection is obtained by a client device to the network target node addressed by a physical I/O address, to more quickly respond to requests for resource files on data storage devices. This enhancement may be implemented by connecting the controller of the data storage device directly to the network, to reduce the latency involved in mapping the logical I/O address into a physical I/O address. In that case the requested resource file is sent to the client directly by the data storage device controller, thus saving time otherwise spent in sending the request and data between computer network components.

Claims

1. A system utilizing a universal-resource locator (URL) addressing scheme for efficiently accessing resource files on a data storage device attached to a networked server system, comprising:

a network interface for receiving from a client computer browser across a network a URL request for a resource file, wherein the URL request as sent by the client browser includes a pre-resolved resource file physical I/O address;

a data storage device adapted to be operatively connected to said interface, wherein said requested resource file on said data storage device is accessed directly, through said physical I/O address;

wherein said requested resource file is adapted to be transferred between said data storage device and client network access equipment operatively connected to said networked server.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the URL request has the following fields:

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein the resource file physical I/O address in the URL request is pre-determined in advance at creation of the resource file.

4. The system according to claim 3, wherein the URL request resource file physical I/O address is embedded in a client computer browser page URL link, pre-establishing a correspondence between a browser page element and said resource file.

5. The system according to claim 4 wherein said network comprises the Internet, the client computer browser comprises a World Wide Web browser, said server system comprises Web servers, said resource file including a Web page, and wherein said Web page has a selectable item including a hyper-text object, said hyper-text object including said pre-determined embedded URL link.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

a server computer serves a browser display page, said browser display page including selectable page items with at least one embedded URL link to at least one other selectable display page on the data storage device, wherein each said embedded URL link includes a physical I/O address of the resource file on the data storage device;

said server receives said URL request, said URL request including said embedded URL link.

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

said URL request is parsed and decoded to obtain said requested resource file physical I/O address, and passes said URL request directly to said data storage device controller, thereby avoiding a file I/O system.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein a networked server directly communicates with said data storage device controller to retrieve said resource file, thereby considerably speeding up network access time, and wherein said URL request has the following fields:

9. The system of claim 1, wherein:

said data storage device controller is directly connected to said network, said data storage device having a destination IP address within said network;

said URL request is sent directly to said data storage device controller without a Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) containing said URL request being sent to a server;

said URL is directly mapped to a physical I/O controller protocol; and

said requested resource file is directly transferred to said network for use by said client network access equipment without said requested resource file being routed through said server.

10. The system according to claim 9, wherein the data storage device includes a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), and wherein said URL request has the following fields:

11. The system according to claim 9, wherein said data storage device includes an IDE controller and the URL request, said URL request having the following fields:

 

IDE;

//<

IP Address or Hostname of Controller>

/<

LUN#>

/<

StartBlock#>

,<

NumberOfBlocks>

specifying an IDE Protocol type, a data storage device controller and logical unit number thereof, and a physical block start address and number of blocks used for the resource file on the data storage device.

12. The system according to claim 1, wherein said network comprises Storage Area Network (SAN) with Fibre Channel (FC) technology.

13. A computer readable medium containing software code for causing a server to send a browser page including a pre-resolved resource file physical I/O address to a client computer, such that a data storage device having an assigned target node adapted for accessing a requested resource file on said data storage device directly, through the physical I/O address of the resource file, can transfer the requested resource file between the data storage device and client network access equipment without having to perform an address mapping step in order to resolve the resource file physical I/O address.

14. The computer readable medium according to claim 13, wherein the URL request has the following fields:

15. The computer readable medium according to claim 13, wherein the resource file physical I/O address in the URL request is pre-determined in advance, during the resource file creation.

16. The computer readable medium according to claim 15, wherein the URL request resource file physical I/O address is embedded in a client computer browser page URL link, pre-establishing a correspondence between said browser page element and the resource file.

17. The computer readable medium according to claim 16, wherein the network comprises the Internet, the client computer browser comprises a World Wide Web browser, the server comprises a Web server, the resource file including a Web page, and wherein said Web page has a selectable item including a hyper-text object, said hyper-text object including said pre-determined embedded URL link.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 13, wherein said computer readable medium further includes:

software code for setting up a session between client network access equipment and said assigned target node for servicing requests from clients;

software code for serving a browser display page including a selectable page item with an embedded URL link to at least one other selectable display page on the data storage device, wherein each said URL link includes a physical I/O address of the resource file on the data storage device; and

software code for receiving at the server a page item selected by a client with the embedded URL link as the URL request to the server system.

19. The method according to claim 13, wherein the client computer browser:

making a connection and setting up a session between the client network access equipment and the assigned target node for servicing requests from clients,

serving a browser display page including selectable page items with embedded URL links to other selectable display pages on the data storage device, wherein each said URL link including a physical I/O address of the resource file on the data storage device, and

sending a selected page item with the embedded URL link as the URL request to the server system.

20. The computer readable medium according to claim 13, wherein the assigned target node:

receives the URL request from the client computer browser;

parses and decodes the URL request to obtain the requested resource file physical I/O address; and

passes the URL request directly to the data storage device controller, thereby avoiding the file I/O system.

21. The computer readable medium according to claim 13, wherein the assigned target node directly communicates with the data storage device controller to retrieve the resource file, thereby considerably speeding up the network access time, and wherein said URL request has the following fields:

22. The computer readable medium according to claim 13, wherein the assigned target node includes the data storage device controller being directly connected to the network and having a network destination IP address, whereby the client network access equipment may issue the URL request directly to the data storage device controller without first sending a Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request to a server, for accessing the requested resource file on the data storage device directly, by mapping the URL to a physical I/O controller protocol, and wherein transferring the requested resource file between the data storage device and the client network access equipment is directly performed by the data storage device controller.

23. The computer readable medium according to claim 22, wherein the data storage device includes a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) and the URL request has the following fields:

24. The computer readable medium according to claim 22, wherein the data storage device includes an IDE controller and the URL request having the following fields:

25. The computer readable medium according to claim 13, wherein the network comprises a Storage Area Network (SAN) with Fibre Channel (FC) technology.

26. A computer readable memory containing software code capable of causing a server computer to send a message including a hyper-text object to a client across a network, said message including a resource file physical I/O address associated with said hyper-text object, said resource file physical I/O address pointing to a resource file on a data storage device operatively connected to said network without requiring said resource file to be routed through said server.

27. The computer readable memory of claim 26 wherein said resource file physical I/O address is embedded within said hyper-text object.

28. The computer readable memory of claim 26 wherein said network is the Internet, said message is in a hyper-text markup language (HTML) message, and said resource file physical I/O address is embedded within said hyper-text object.

29. The computer readable memory of claim 26 wherein said message is a first HTML browser page which includes said hyper-text object, and said resource file physical I/O address is embedded within said hyper-text object.

30. The computer readable memory of claim 29 wherein said resource file is second HTML browser page.

31. A computer readable memory containing programming code capable of causing a first computer operatively connected to a local area network (LAN) which in turn is operatively connected to both a data storage device and a wide area network (WAN), to send a message across said WAN to a second computer;

said message including a pre-resolved resource file physical I/O address such that said second computer can request a file from said data storage device using said pre-resolved resource file physical I/O address, said requested file being thereafter transferred from said data storage device to said second computer without being routed through said server.