Network application apparatus

Abstract

An apparatus and method to distribute applications and services in and throughout a network. The apparatus includes the functionality of a switch with the ability to apply applications and services to received data according to respective subscriber profiles. Front-end processors, or Network Processor Modules (NPMs), receive and recognize data flows from subscribers, extract profile information for the respective subscribers, utilize flow scheduling techniques to forward the data to applications processors, or Flow Processor Modules (FPMs). The FPMs utilize resident applications to process data received from the NPMS. A Control Processor Module (CPM) facilitates applications processing and maintains connections to the NPMs, FPMs, local and remote storage devices, and a Management Server (MS) module that can monitor the health and maintenance of the various modules. In an embodiment, the MS can download and otherwise control applications on the FPMs that execute the Linux operating system to provide an open architecture for downloading, executing, modifying, and otherwise managing applications.

Description

CLAIM OF PRIORITY[0001] This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 235,281, entitled "Optical Application Switch Architecture with Load Balancing Method", and filed on Sep. 25, 2000, naming Mike Ackerman, Stephen Justus, Throop Wilder, Kurt Reiss, Rich Collins, Derek Keefe, Bill Terrell, Joe Kroll, Eugene Korsunky, A. J. Beaverson, Avikudy Srikanth, Luc Parisean, Vitaly Dvorkian, Hung Trinh, and Sherman Dmirty as inventors, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.[0002] This patent application is co-pending with a related patent application entitled Second Title by the same inventor(s) as this patent application.[0003] 1. Field of the Invention[0004] The present invention relates generally to network devices, and more particularly to improved devices and methods for delivering services and applications to network users.[0005] 2. Description of the Prior Art[0006] Increasing numbers of businesses, services, and other providers are expan...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010] In an embodiment, the applications processors and front-end processors can be connected to a control processor that can further access local and remote storage devices that include subscriber profile information and applications data that can be transferred to the front-end or applications processors. The control processor can further aggregate health and maintenance information from the applications and front-end processors, and provide a communications path for distributing health, maintenance, and / or control information between a management processor and the front-end and applications processors.

[0014] In one embodiment, an internal switched Ethernet control bus connects the internal components of the switch and facilitates management and control operations. The internal switched Ethernet control bus can be separate from a switched data path that can be used for internal packet forwarding.

[0016] In an embodiment, the well-known Linux operating system can be installed on the FPM and CPM processors, thereby providing an open architecture that allows installation and modification of, for example, applications residing on the FPMs. In an embodiment, the NPMs can execute the well-known VxWorks operating system on a MIPS processor and a small executable on a network processor.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately, a given service is often provided from a single network location that is deemed the central location for the service.

Although the prior art systems may attempt to increase the computational power at the particular destination IP address by distributing the requests at the IP address, data transport dependencies remain inherent in the network structure.

The content-aware flow switch is therefore limited by the rate at which requests arrive.

There is currently not a scalable system or method to alleviate the data transport dependencies characteristic of large computer networks such as the internet.

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