ARCHITECTURE FOR COMMUNICATING WITH AND CONTROLLING SEPARATE UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM DEVICES

• US 20020062380A1
• Filed: 12/31/1997
• Published: 05/23/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/1997
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: MOHAMMED, MANNAN, CRAVER, TOM, HARTE, HOWARD M.
• Granted Patent: US 6,421,728 B1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/228
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2801 Broadband local area networks

Abstract

What is disclosed is an apparatus having a first interface with a device driver for interfacing with an downstream device; and, a second interface having a control and parse engine and an input/output control interface for interfacing with the first interface.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a first interface having a device driver for interfacing with an downstream device; and

,

a second interface having a control and parse engine and an input/output control interface for interfacing with said first interface.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said second interface further comprises:

a graphical user interface;

a third interface having a component for interfacing with a WinSock unit; and

a fourth interface having a component for interfacing with an upstream device.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said device driver is a cable modem driver.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein said upstream device is an wide area network device.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said device driver further comprises:

a set of object attributes identifiers; and

,

a set of application programming interfaces.

6. An apparatus comprising:

a processor;

an upstream device coupled to said processor;

a downstream device coupled to said processor; and

,

a memory coupled to said processor and configured to cause said processor to;

establish a socket connection;

receive a first data packet; and

,

determine if said data packet contains a command, wherein if said data packet contains a command, then communicating with said downstream device to respond to said command; and

if said data packet does not contain a command, then communicating with said upstream device to initiate an upstream connection.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein said upstream device is a wide area network device.

8. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein said downstream device is a cable modem.

9. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein said socket connection has an associated port number.

10. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein said step of communicating with said downstream device comprises the steps of:

determining said command contained in said data packet;

determining an associated object attribute identifier for said command; and

issuing said associated object attributes identifier to a device driver.