LAN with dynamically selectable multiple operational capabilities

• US 5,077,732 A
• Filed: 07/24/1990
• Issued: 12/31/1991
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/1988
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Datapoint Corp. (Dynacore Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Datapoint Corp. (Dynacore Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Cox, William M., Fischer, Michael A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Olms, Douglas W.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jung, Min
• Application Number:
  US07/559,391
• Time in Patent Office: 525 Days
• Field of Search: 370/85.1, 370/85.2, 370/85.3, 370/85.4, 370/85.6, 370/94.1, 370/94.3, 370/85.5, 370/85.12, 370/85.8, 340/825.5, 340/825.51
• US Class Current: 370/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/28 characterised by path configuration, e.g. LAN [Local Area Networks] or WAN [Wide Area Networks] wireless communication networks H04W ; arrangements for dividing the transmission path H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/24 Negotiation of communication capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Multiple different operational capabilities, such as data transfer rates or communication protocols, are selectable for use on a single LAN. Enchanced nodes of the LAN have the capability of utilizing either an enhanced capability or a common capability in communicating with other nodes. Those basic nodes which are not of the enhanced variety have the capability of communicating utilizing the common capability. The enhanced nodes dynamically select the operational capability for the most efficient communication with other nodes.

Claims

1. A local area network or LAN, comprising:

a plurality of at least three nodes;

a communication medium interconnecting all of the nodes as equal peers in a single network configuration;

common means associated with each of the nodes for communicating in accordance with a predetermined logical connectivity pattern between each node and all of the other ones of the nodes and for communicating frames containing data over the communication medium at a common operational capability; and

enhanced means additionally associated with the common means of each of at least two nodes, each node with which an enhanced means is associated being an enhanced node, each enhanced means communicating in accordance with a predetermined logical connectivity pattern between each enhanced node and all of the other ones of the enhanced nodes and communicating frames containing data over the medium at an enhanced operational capability, the enhanced operational capability achieving a substantially different form of data frame communication over the medium between enhanced nodes than the data frame communication over the medium achieved between nodes at the common operational capability.

2. A LAN as defined in claim 1 further comprising:

selecting means associated with each enhanced means and operative for selecting either the common capability or the enhanced capability for communicating with each other node.

3. A LAN as defined in claim 2 further comprising:

determining means associated with each selecting means and operative for determining if each other node is an enhanced node.

4. A LAN as defined in claim 3 wherein:

said determining means operatively makes the determination based on communications originating from each other node.

5. A LAN as defined in claim 4 wherein:

the enhanced means of each one enhanced node communicates capability information to the other enhanced means of each other enhanced node upon each one enhanced node becoming active.

6. A LAN as defined in claim 5 wherein the capability information is contained in a broadcast communication to all nodes.

7. A LAN as defined in claim 4 wherein:

the enhanced means of each one enhanced node communicates capability information to the other enhanced means of each other enhanced node in at least some of the communications originating from each one enhanced node.

8. A LAN as defined in claim 7 further comprising:

extracting means associated with each other enhanced means and operative for extracting the capability information from at least some of the communications originating from each one enhanced node.

9. A LAN as defined in claim 8 further comprising:

memory means associated with each enhanced means and operative for recording the capability information of each node.

10. A LAN as defined in claim 8 wherein said some of the communications are data packets.

11. A LAN as defined in claim 10 wherein said LAN is of the carrier sense multiple access variety.

12. A LAN as defined in claim 8 wherein said LAN is of the token passing variety and said some of the communications are tokens.

13. A LAN as defined in claim 12 wherein the tokens which are passed communicate the capability information.

14. A LAN as defined in claim 13 further comprising:

inserting means associated with each enhanced means and operative for inserting the capability information in the token upon passing the token.

15. A LAN as defined in claim 14 wherein the token does not contain address information of the node passing the token but contains address information of only the node receiving the token, further comprising:

means for determining the address of one node passing the token from the address information of the token which was passed to the one node, and

means for associating the address of the one node passing the token with the capability information inserted in the token passed by the one node.

16. A LAN as defined in claim 2 wherein:

said selecting means operatively selects the enhanced capability for communication between enhanced nodes as a part of establishing communications between the enhanced nodes.

17. A LAN as defined in claim 16 wherein:

said selecting means further selects the common capability for communication between an enhanced node and those nodes which are not enhanced nodes.

18. A LAN as defined in claim 4 wherein communicating between nodes also includes sending a data packet from a source node to a destination node, and

said enhanced means associated with each enhanced source node and each enhanced destination node communicate with one another to establish the capability at which the data packet is to be sent, as a part of the communication between enhanced nodes.

19. A LAN as defined in claim 18 wherein the communication between the enhanced source node and the enhanced destination node to establish the capability occurs immediately prior to sending the data packet.

20. A LAN as defined in claim 18 wherein the communication between the enhanced source and destination nodes to establish the enhanced capability occurs at the common capability.

21. A LAN as defined in claim 18 wherein the enhanced means at the source node selects the capability at which the communication is to be sent.

22. A LAN as defined in claim 21 wherein the selection is based at least in part on information communicated by the destination node.

23. A LAN as defined in claim 18 wherein the enhanced means at the destination node selects the capability at which the communication is to be sent.

24. A LAN as defined in claim 23 wherein the selection is based at least in part on information communicated by the source node.

25. A LAN as defined in claim 2 wherein the operational capability is a data rate.

26. A LAN as defined in claim 2 wherein a plurality of enhanced operational capabilities are available at each enhanced means, and each enhanced capability is different from each other enhanced capability.

27. A LAN as defined in claim 2 wherein each enhanced means is a part of each enhanced node, and said selection means is thereby distributed to each enhanced node.

28. A LAN as defined in claim 1 wherein the enhanced means is associated with less than all of the nodes.

29. A LAN as defined in claim 1 wherein all communication occurs between nodes by the transmission and reception of frames.

30. A LAN as defined in claim 1 wherein each node includes an interface means for transmitting and receiving communications from the communication medium, and the common and enhanced means are inherent components of the interface means of each enhanced node.

31. A method of communicating information frames between at least three nodes in a local area network or LAN, comprising:

interconnecting all of the nodes as equal peers in a single network configuration;

communicating frames containing data between all of the nodes at a common communication capability and in accordance with a predetermined logical connectivity pattern;

communicating frames containing data between at least two nodes at an enhanced communication capability and in accordance with a predetermined logical connectivity pattern, the nodes between which frames are communicated at the enhanced capability each being an enhanced node; and

achieving a substantially different form of data frame communication over the medium between enhanced nodes than the data frame communication over the medium achieved between nodes at the common operational capability.

32. A method as defined in claim 31 further comprising:

selecting either the common capability or the enhanced capability for communicating between the nodes.

33. A method as defined in claim 32 further comprising:

determining if the nodes between which a communication is to be directed are enhanced nodes.

34. A method as defined in claim 33 further comprising:

utilizing information contained in frames originating from each node to make the determination.

35. A method as defined in claim 34 further comprising:

communicating capability information to the other enhanced nodes upon each enhanced node becoming active.

36. A method as defined in claim 35 further comprising:

broadcasting the capability information in a broadcast frame to all the nodes.

37. A method as defined in claim 34 further comprising:

communicating capability information to the other enhanced nodes in at least some of the frames originating from each enhanced node.

38. A method as defined in claim 37 further comprising:

extracting the capability information from at least some of the frames originating from each enhanced node.

39. A method as defined in claim 38 further comprising:

recording the capability information of other enhanced nodes in a memory of an enhanced node.

40. A method as defined in claim 38 wherein said some of the communication frames are data packets.

41. A method as defined in claim 40 wherein said LAN is of the carrier sense multiple access variety.

42. A method as defined in claim 38 wherein said LAN is of the token passing variety and said some of the communication frames are tokens.

43. A method as defined in claim 42 further comprising:

passing the tokens to communicate the capability information.

44. A method as defined in claim 43 further comprising:

inserting the capability information in the token upon passing the token from each enhanced mode.

45. A method as defined in claim 44 wherein the token does not contain information of the mode passing the token but contains address information of only the node receiving the token, and further comprising:

determining the address of one node passing the token from the address information of the token which was passed to the one node, and

associating the address of the one node passing the token with the capability information inserted in the token passed by the one node.

46. A method as defined in claim 32 further comprising:

selecting the enhanced capability for communicating frames between enhanced nodes as a part of establishing communications between the enhanced nodes.

47. A method as defined in claim 46 further comprising:

selecting the common capability for communicating frames between an enhanced node and those nodes which are not enhanced nodes.

48. A method as defined in claim 32 wherein:

communicating frames between nodes includes sending a data packet from a source node to a destination node; and

further comprising;

selecting the capability by communicating between each enhanced source node and each enhanced destination node to establish the capability at which the data packet to be sent.

49. A method as defined in claim 48 wherein communicating between the enhanced source node and the enhanced destination node to establish the capability occurs immediately prior to sending the data packet.

50. A method as defined in claim 48 wherein communicating between the enhanced source and destination nodes to establish the enhanced capability occurs at the common capability.

51. A method as defined in claim 48 wherein the enhanced source node selects the capability at which the communication is to be sent.

52. A method as defined in claim 51 further comprising:

selecting the capability based at least in part on capability information communicated by the destination node.

53. A method as defined in claim 48 wherein the enhanced destination node selects the capability at which the communication is to be sent.

54. A method as defined in claim 53 further comprising:

selecting the capability based at least in part on capability information communicated by the source node.

55. A method as defined in claim 32 wherein the communication capability is a data rate.

56. A method as defined in claim 32 further comprising:

making available a plurality of enhanced communication capabilities available at each enhanced node, each enhanced capability differing from each other enhanced capability.

57. A local area network or LAN of the token passing variety, comprising:

a plurality of at least three nodes;

a communication medium interconnecting all of the nodes as equal peers in a single network configuration;

common means associated with each of the nodes for communicating in accordance with a predetermined logical connectivity pattern between each node and all of the other of the nodes at a common operational capability; and

enhanced means additionally associated with the common means of each of at least two nodes, each node with which an enhanced means is associated being an enhanced node, each enhanced means communicating in accordance with a predetermined logical connectivity pattern between each enhanced node and all of the other ones of the enhanced nodes at an enhanced operational capability which is substantially different than the common operational capability;

each enhanced means further comprising;

inserting means for inserting capability information in a token upon passing the token;

extracting means for extracting any capability information from the tokens passed from each other node;

determining means for determining if each other node is an enhanced node based on the capability information inserted in a token passed from said each other node; and

selecting means operative in response to the determined capability information for selecting either the common capability or the enhanced capability for communicating with each other node.

58. A LAN as defined in claim 57 wherein the token does not contain address information of the node passing the token but contains only address information of the node receiving the token, each enhanced means further comprising:

means for determining the address of the node passing the token from the address information of the token which was passed to the one node; and

means for associating the address of the node passing the token with the capability information inserted in the token passed by the node.

59. A local area network or LAN, comprising:

a plurality of at least three nodes;

a communication medium interconnecting all of the nodes as equal peers in a single network configuration;

common means associated with each of the nodes for communicating in accordance with a predetermined logical connectivity pattern between each node and all of the other ones of the nodes at a common operational capability; and

enhanced means additionally associated with the common means of each of at least two nodes, each node with which an enhanced means is associated being an enhanced node, each enhanced means communicating in accordance with a predetermined logical connectivity pattern between each enhanced node and all of the other ones of the enhanced nodes at an enhanced operational capability which is substantially different than the common operational capability;

each enhanced means further comprising;

selecting means for selecting either the common capability or the enhanced capability for communicating with each other node, and

determining means associated with each selecting means and operative for determining if each other node is an enhanced node; and

wherein;

communicating between nodes includes sending a data packet from a source node to a destination node,

said enhanced means associated with each enhanced source node and each enhanced destination node communicate with one another to establish the capability at which the data packet is to be sent as a part of the communication between enhanced nodes, and

said determining means operatively makes the determination based on communications originating from the other node with which the communication occurs.

60. A LAN as defined in claim 59 wherein the communication between the enhanced source node and the enhanced destination node to establish the capability occurs immediately prior to sending the data packet.

61. A LAN as defined in claim 59 wherein the communication between the enhanced source and destination nodes to establish the enhanced capability occurs at the common capability.

62. A LAN as defined in claim 59 wherein the enhanced means at the source node selects the capability at which the communication is to be sent.

63. A LAN as defined in claim 62 wherein the selection is based at least in part on information communicated by the destination node.

64. A LAN as defined in claim 59 wherein the enhanced means at the destination node selects the capability at which the communication is to be sent.

65. A method of communicating information frames between at least three nodes in a local area network of the token passing varietey, comprising:

interconnecting all of the nodes as equal peers in a single network configuration;

communicating frames between all of the nodes at a common communication capability in accordance with a predetermined logical connectivity pattern;

communicating frames between at least two nodes at an enhanced communication capability which is substantially different than the common communication capability in accordance with the predetermined logical connectivity pattern, the nodes between which frames are communicated at the enhanced capability each being an enhanced node;

communicating capability information to the other enhanced nodes in at least some of the frames originating from each enhanced node, some of the frames being tokens;

passing a token to communicate the capability information;

inserting the capability information in the token upon passing the token from each enhanced node;

extracting the capability information from at least some of the frames originating from each enhanced node;

determining if the nodes between which a communication is to be directed are enhanced nodes by utilizing information contained in frames originating from each node to make the determination; and

selecting either the common capability or the enhanced capability for communicating beteween the nodes based on the determination if the two nodes between which the communication is to be directed are enhanced nodes.

66. A method as defined in claim 65 wherein the token does not contain address information of the node passing the token but contains address information of only the node receiving the token, and further comprising:

determining the address of one node passing the token from the address information of the token which was passed to the one node, and

associating the address of the one node passing the token with the capability information inserted in the token passed by the one node.