Method and Arrangement for Suppressing Duplicate Network Resources

• US 20100223387A1
• Filed: 04/12/2010
• Published: 09/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/06/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: David M O'Rourke, Kevin Arnold
• Original Assignee: David M O'Rourke, Kevin Arnold
• Inventors: O'Rourke, David M., Arnold, Kevin
• Granted Patent: US 8,392,570 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/26 using dedicated tools for LAN [Local Area Network] management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5058 Service discovery by the service manager
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/82 Miscellaneous aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1004 Server selection for load balancing

Abstract

A duplicate suppression protocol is introduced in order to suppress duplicate entries from appearing in a list of available network resources. With the duplicate suppression protocol of the present invention, a computer that wishes to query for network resources also asks for duplicate suppression information from the responding network resources. The duplicate suppression information for a particular network resource specifies identifiers associated with that network resource for various protocols. Thus, if a particular network resource responds to more than one network resource request from a single requesting entity, that requesting entity will be able to locate duplicate network resource information. Thus, a single unified list of network resources available for various different protocols may be presented with all duplicate network resources removed.

Claims

1-20. -20. (canceled)

21. A computer readable medium storing a computer program which when executed by at least one processor identifies computer network resources on a computer network, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving, from a network node, a duplicate suppression message indicating that the network node has different identifiers in different protocols;

receiving first and second network resource messages from the network node, the first network resource message identifying the network node in a first protocol and the second network resource message identifying the network node in a second protocol;

using the duplicate suppression message to determine that said first network resource message and said second network resource message are from a single network node.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 21 further comprising a set of instructions for creating a list of network resources, said list of network resources comprising only one entry for said network node.

23. The computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for sending a duplicate suppression request prior to receiving the duplicate suppression message.

24. The computer readable medium of claim 23, wherein the duplicate suppression request is broadcast onto the computer network.

25. The computer readable medium of claim 24, wherein the broadcast comprises a limited broadcast.

26. The computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for broadcasting a first network resource request for the first protocol prior to receiving the first network resource message.

27. The computer readable medium of claim 26, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for broadcasting a second network resource request for the second protocol prior to receiving the first network resource message.

28. The computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein the duplicate suppression message comprises hashes of identifiers for the network node in the first and second protocols.

29. A computer readable medium storing a computer program which when executed by at least one processor identifies computer network resources on a computer network, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving, from a network node, a first message that includes a first identifier that identifies the network node in a first protocol;

receiving, from the network node, a second message that includes a second, different identifier that identifies the network node in a second protocol; and

determining that the first identifier and said second identifier are both identifiers of the same network node.

30. The computer readable medium of claim 29, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for storing only one of the first and second identifiers as an entry for the network node in a list of network resources.

31. The computer readable medium of claim 29, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for determining which of the first protocol and the second protocol is a preferred protocol.

32. The computer readable medium of claim 29, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for storing the first identifier as an entry for the network node in a list of network resources after receiving the first message.

33. The computer readable medium of claim 32, wherein the computer program further comprises sets of instructions for:

after determining that the first and second identifiers are both identifiers of the same network node, determining which of the first and second protocol is preferred; and

when the second protocol is preferred, removing the first identifier as the entry for the network node in the list of network resources and adding the second identifier as the entry for the network node in the list of network resources.

34. The computer readable medium of claim 29, wherein the computer program further comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving, from the network node, a third message that includes a third, different identifier that identifies the network node in a third protocol; and

determining that the first, second, and third identifiers are all identifiers of the same network node.

35. A computer readable medium storing a computer program which when executed by at least one processor identifies network resources on a computer network, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

sending a plurality of requests to a plurality of network resources requesting that the network resources provide identifiers for a plurality of different protocols;

using a plurality of identifiers provided in response to the requests to identify each of the network resources uniquely;

and

providing a single identifier for each of the network resources in a list of network resources.

36. The computer readable medium of claim 35, wherein the computer program executes on a network resource of the computer network.

37. The computer readable medium of claim 35, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for displaying the list of network resources.

38. The computer readable medium of claim 35, wherein the single identifier for a particular network resource in the list of network resources is an identifier of the particular network resource in a preferred protocol.

39. The computer readable medium of claim 35, wherein at least one of the network resources is a printer.