Patent · US Expired

System for updating mapping or virtual host names to layer-3 address when multimedia server changes its usage state to busy or not busy

US5878212A · kind A · utility

89Cited by
9References
20Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJul 31, 1995
Grant dateMar 2, 1999
Priority date
Expiry dateJul 31, 2015

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L61/58
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A name mapper, name servers, and multimedia servers are connected to a multimedia manager. Each client has the name of a multimedia server, i.e., a virtual host name, from which it can obtain multimedia service. The name server stores associations of server host names to layer-3 addresses. When a client initiates a multimedia session, it requests the layer-3 address of the server that corresponds to its server's name. The name server sends the layer-3 address of the one of the multimedia servers that is currently designated as corresponding to that name. The multimedia client stores the name-to-layer-3 address binding in it's cache. The multimedia client then establishes communications with the multimedia server at that layer-3 address and clears its cache. The dynamic name-to-layer-3 address binding in the name server is managed by the name mapper, which may be collocated with the multimedia manager or may be located on a separate server. The multimedia server manager collects real-time status information so that it knows the availability of the multimedia servers in the network. If a multimedia server, whose layer-3 address is presently mapped to from a virtual host name, becomes…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.