Resource command messages and methods

• US 9,270,532 B2
• Filed: 10/06/2005
• Issued: 02/23/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rateze Remote Mgmt. L.L.C. (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Rateze Remote Mgmt. L.L.C. (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Adams, Mark, Ludwig, Thomas Earl, Frank, Charles William, Witchey, Nicholas J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hwang, Joon H
• Assistant Examiner(s): LIN, SHERMAN L
• Application Number:
  US11/246,721
• Publication Number:
  US 20070083662A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,792 Days
• Field of Search: 709/245, 709/229
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals

Abstract

Resource command messages comprise commands and command urgency or importance information that is interpreted by a resource device and is coupled with information relating to the resource device to determine when to process the command within the resource command message. Resource devices comprising a plurality of resource nodes provide increased performance, responsiveness, and load balancing by multiple resource nodes processing the same resource command message in parallel.

Claims

1. An article of manufacture comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable medium; and

instructions within the computer-readable medium that, when executed, cause a node;

to transmit, in a first multicast message, a first resource command message to a plurality of resource nodes over a communication path;

to receive responses to the first resource command message from the plurality of resource nodes;

to select a preferred provider from the plurality of resource nodes based at least in part on the responses received from the plurality of resource nodes; and

to transmit, in a second multicast message, a second resource command message to the plurality of resource nodes, the second resource command message including a command and an indication of the preferred provider selected from the plurality of resource nodes, said second resource command message to instruct the preferred provider to process the command with a first urgency and to instruct another resource node of the plurality of resource nodes to process the command with a second urgency that is less than the first urgency.

2. The article of manufacture of claim 1, wherein each of the responses from the plurality of resource nodes include identical content.

3. The article of manufacture of claim 1, wherein the plurality of resource nodes comprise a plurality of redundant resource nodes that manage duplicate resources.

4. The article of manufacture of claim 1, wherein the second resource command message has a command urgency that includes the indication of the preferred provider.

5. The article of manufacture of claim 1, wherein the first resource command message includes a command urgency that indicates a relative time to process a command in the first resource command message.

6. The article of manufacture of claim 1, wherein the first resource command message includes a command urgency that indicates an absolute time to process a command in the first resource command message.

7. The article of manufacture of claim 1, wherein the first resource command message includes a command importance that indicates an absolute priority to process a command in the first resource command message.

8. The article of manufacture of claim 1, wherein the second resource command message includes a command identifier that relates the second resource command message to the first resource command message.

9. A method comprising:

transmitting, in a first multicast message, a first resource command message to a plurality of resource nodes;

receiving responses to the first resource command message from the plurality of resource nodes;

selecting a preferred provider from the plurality of resource nodes based at least in part on the responses received from the plurality of resource nodes; and

transmitting, in a second multicast message, a second resource command message to the plurality of resource nodes, the second resource command message including a command and an indication of the preferred provider selected from the plurality of resource nodes, said second resource command message to instruct the preferred provider to process the command with a first urgency and to instruct another resource node of the plurality of resource nodes to process the command with a second urgency that is less than the first urgency.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein each of the responses from the plurality of resource nodes include identical content.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the plurality of resource nodes comprise a plurality of redundant resource nodes that manage duplicate resources.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

providing the second resource command message with a command urgency that includes the indication of the preferred provider.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

providing the first resource command message with a command urgency that indicates a relative time to process a command within the first resource command message.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

providing the first resource command message with a command urgency that indicates an absolute time to process a command within the first resource command message.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

providing the first resource command message with a command importance that indicates an absolute priority to process a command within the first resource command.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

providing the second resource command message with a command identifier that relates the second resource command message to the first resource command message.

17. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

transmitting a broadcast discovery message;

receiving a discovery response from a first resource node of the plurality of resource nodes, the discovery response including a name of the first resource node; and

determining, based at least in part on the name, an address to be used in sending communications to the first resource node over a communication path.