Transparent request routing for a partitioned application service

• US 20040030755A1
• Filed: 08/12/2002
• Published: 02/12/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Long, Paula, Hayden, Peter C., Koning, G. Paul
• Granted Patent: US 7,571,206 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing an efficient partitioned resource server. In one embodiment, the partitioned resource server comprises a plurality of individual servers, and the individual servers appear to be equivalent to a client. Each of the individual servers may include a routing table that includes a reference for each resource that is maintained on the partitioned resource server. Requests from a client are processed as a function of the routing table to route the request to the individual server that maintains or has control over the resource of interest.

Claims

1. A method for accessing a resource distributed over a plurality of servers in a network, comprising:

establishing a connection to a server via the network;

requesting the resource from the server;

determining a distribution of the resource among the plurality of servers;

returning the resource distributed over the plurality of servers via the server while maintaining a network connection to the server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said distribution is determined from a routing table that resides on each of the plurality of servers and is synchronized between the plurality of servers.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the routing table contains a reference to the resource or to a portion of the resource residing on each of the plurality of servers.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein each server includes a routing table that maintains a direct reference for each resource maintained by the plurality of servers.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein routing of client requests is done separately for each request.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein resources, or portions thereof, can be moved while the client is connected to the plurality of servers.

7. The method of claim 1, including updating the routing tables dynamically.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein a subsequent client request is forwarded to the server that is responsible for handling the subsequent request.

9. A client-server architecture for accessing a distributed resource, comprising:

a plurality of servers connected to a network,

a resource distributed over said plurality of servers, each server including a routing table which associates the resource or the portion of the resource with a corresponding one of the servers;

wherein a client request for said resource is routed to one of the servers and said one server responds to the client request for the resource.

10. The architecture of claim 9, wherein said resource comprises a file having data blocks.

11. The architecture of claim 10, wherein said routing table includes a reference to a group of the data blocks.

12. A method for providing access to resources distributed over a plurality of servers in a network, comprising:

determining a distribution for the resources across the plurality of servers;

providing each of the plurality of servers with a table that contains a reference for each resource distributed across the plurality of servers, wherein the reference represents the respective server having control over the respective resource, listening for an incoming request for access to a particular resource, and

processing the detected incoming request by querying the table to determine the server having control over the requested resource.