328 results about "Server farm" patented technology

A plurality of virtual machines execute on a network of physical computers. The virtual machines are deployed in fenced and unfenced configurations across multiple physical computers. Host level virtual network devices execute on the physical computers, and intercept the virtual machine network traffic. For each fenced configuration of virtual machines, a distributed virtual switch transmits network traffic between the virtual machines deployed in that fenced configuration, and a virtual router routes network traffic between virtual machines deployed in that fenced configuration and external components.

An electronic mail system with a methodology providing distributed message storage and processing is described. In particular, this methodology breaks up how the individual components of message data are stored. Message data itself is broken up into two parts: a metadata (mutable) portion, and an immutable portion. The metadata portion represents that part of the message data that may change over time. This includes message status flags (e.g., the IMAP “message deleted” flag) and the message's position within a particular message folder, among other information. The immutable portion, which comprises the bulk of electronic mail data (namely, the message itself), once stored is never edited. Immutable data is written f+1 times on as many unique servers, to tolerate f number of server failures using Lampson's stable storage algorithm. The metadata portion is stored 2f+1 times on as many unique servers to tolerate f number of server failures using quorum voting. Once the message has been stored once, instead of being copied, its location is passed around by reference. The system utilizes a two-tier architecture. One tier consists of servers which store message metadata and immutable data, the Data Servers, and servers that operating upon those data, the Access Servers. Message store integrity is maintained in the event of server failure and as the set of Data Servers changes. In the latter case, I / O and storage workloads are dynamically redistributed across Data Servers in an efficient way.

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for managing and balancing the load of each of the servers in the network. In one aspect, the invention relates to an apparatus for managing server load in a networked system of servers. The apparatus includes a dynamic store storing run-time information associated with a plurality of servers in a server farm. The apparatus also includes an event bus. The apparatus also includes a load management subsystem in communication with the dynamic store via the event bus. The load management subsystem receives a request from the event bus to identify a server and transmits a message to the event bus that includes an address of an identified server based on information from the dynamic store.

The present application is related methods to monitor a state of one or more components of a remote access server farm by an intermediary to distinguish between operating and functional components and improve farm availability for user application requests. The intermediary may be deployed between a client and the remote access server farm and forwards client requests to functional components of the remote access server farm.

A technique for implementing a load balanced server farm system is described which may be used for effecting electronic commerce over a data network. The system comprises a load balancing system and a plurality of servers in communication with the load balancing system. Each of the plurality of servers may include a respective data cache for storing state information relating to client session transactions conducted between the server and a particular client. The load balancing system is configured to select, using a load balancing protocol, an available first server from the plurality of servers to process an initial packet received from a source device such as, for example, a client machine of a customer. The load balancing system is also configured to route subsequent packets received from the source device to the first server. In this way, a “stickiness” scheme may be implemented in the server farm system whereby, once an electronic commerce session has been initiated between the first server and the source device, the first server may handle all subsequent requests from the source device in order to make optimal use of the state data stored in the first server's data cache. Before generating its response, the first server may verify that the state information relating to a specific client session stored in the data cache is up-to-date. If the first server determines that the state information stored in the data cache is not up-to-date, then the first server may be configured to retrieve the desired up-to-date state information from a database which is configured to store all state information relating to client sessions which have been initiated with the server farm system.

A threshold-based approach is used to assign tasks to servers in a server farm. A “number of connections” count or “connection rate” is maintained for an active server and when the count achieves a first value a wake up signal is sent to a next (inactive) server to alert the inactive server to become active and periodic keep alive signals are initiated. When the number of connections next reaches a second, higher value, subsequent requests for connections are sent to the newly active server. Variations of this approach allow for servers and their associated processes and devices to be handled in clusters for power management scaling efficiency. Servers can be placed in the inactive mode when the number of connections reaches a lower threshold. Other criteria can be used to determine activation of servers, processors or other devices or processes. Other types of resource use monitoring can also be used with this invention.

A system and method of providing video drive-by data is provided to enable a street level view of a neighborhood surrounding a selected geographic location. The system includes a video and data server farm incorporation at least one video storage server that stores video image files containing video drive-by data that corresponds to a geographic location, a database server that processes a data query received from a user over the Internet that corresponds to a geographic location of interest, and an image processing server. In operation, the database server identifies video image files stored in the video storage server that correspond to the geographic location of interest contained in the data query, and transfers the video image files over a pre-processing network to the image processing server. The image processing server converts the video drive-by data to post processed video data corresponding to a desired image format, and transfers the post processed video data via post-processing network to the Internet response to the query.

The invention discloses a real-time road condition acquiring, analyzing and back-feeding and intelligent transportation integrated service system, which is divided into two parts of an intelligent terminal host and a server-side server farm. The intelligent terminal host consists of electronic map application, GPS receiving, p2p data transmission, navigation, voice control, general message checking and a communication module; the server-side server farm consists of vehicle information and public TMC receiving, data integration and filtration, road condition analysis, road condition forecast, electronic map management and maintenance, dynamic information prompt, advertising publishing, data feedback and publishing, a server-side data base, parking space information collection and treatment, road section codes, road condition codes, road planning analog and a communication module. The invention has wide road condition information acquisition source, strong data handling capacity, can carry out highly-accurate real-time road condition analysis, road condition information forecast, path planning navigation, information inquiry and the like, and can be widely applied in the fields of road planning, intelligent traffic management, vehicle navigation, car scheduling and the like.

Some embodiments of the present invention are directed to a system that enables filtered application-to-application communication in a server farm in a multi-channel reliable hardware environment (e.g. InfiniBand). The system may also improve the performance of application-to-application communication between servers in the farm. The implementation of multi-channel reliable communication hardware may reduce the number of communication software layers above.

A server allocation controller provides an improved distributed data processing system for facilitating dynamic allocation of computing resources. The server allocation controller supports transaction and parallel services across multiple data centers enabling dynamic allocation of computing resources based on the current workload and service level agreements. The server allocation controller provides a method for dynamic re-partitioning of the workload to handle workload surges. Computing resources are dynamically assigned among transaction and parallel application classes, based on the current and predicted workload. Based on a service level agreement, the server allocation controller monitors and predicts the load on the system. If the current or predicted load cannot be handled with the current system configuration the server allocation controller determines additional resources needed to handle the current or predicted workload. The server cluster is reconfigured to meet the service level agreement.

A method and apparatus are described for auditing and tracking changes in a managed hosting server. Embodiments of the present invention track changes made to systems in a server farm or data center. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention track changes to the operating system, file system, registry, application software files, and other important files and maintain the changes in a database. This database of changes can then be queried to identify the root cause of problems and aid in systems and applications management in the data center.

Some embodiments provide a director agent, a server agent, and a specialized hand-off protocol for improving scalability and resource usage within a server farm. A first network connection is established between a client and the director agent in order to receive a content request from the client from which to select a server from a set of servers that is responsible for hosting the requested content. A second network connection is established between the server agent that is associated with the selected server and a protocol stack of the selected server. The first network connection is handed-off to the server agent using the specialized hand-off protocol. The server agent performs network connection state parameter transformations between the two connections to create a network connection through which content can be passed from the selected server to the client without passing through the director.

The present invention relates to a method and system for the remote and dynamic configuration of a webserver to facilitate capacity on demand. The present invention provides a solution to the problem of the management and administration of one or more servers within an environment such as a server farm with regards to the rigid infrastructure and architecture of the servers due to the definition of roles the servers play in relation to the data the servers are publishing. A solution is provided in the form of autonomic modular computing components to allow a server to process a URL and the server to associate it with a remote data source without the need for a restart or manual intervention of the server and to allow the introduction of new services and or hardware resources by collating and analysing performance data collected from the server to determine if the server is over or under utilised.

An upstream device, such as a load balancer or router within a server farm, may perform sticky routing of session requests to the servers handling those sessions by generating unique ID(s) identifying how requests may be routed through the server farm. Upstream devices through which travels a request that is not associated with a session on a server of the server farm may generate one or more unique IDs identifying how the request is routed through the server farm. The server handling the request may form a session ID and return that session ID and the unique ID(s) to the client that originated the new request and session. Clients may then send the session ID and unique IDs with clients requests for that session. Upon receiving requests corresponding to established sessions, the upstream devices may then identify routing information from the unique ID(s) and route the request accordingly.

Disclosed herein are methods, systems, and computer program products for the placement of a virtual machine within a plurality of cache-coherent NUMA servers. According to an aspect, an example method includes determining a resource requirement of the virtual machine. The example method may also include determining a resource availability of one or more nodes of the plurality of servers. Further, the example method may include selecting placement of the virtual machine within one or more nodes of the plurality of cache-coherent NUMA servers based on the determined resource requirement and the determined resource availability.

A method for detecting malicious servers. The method includes analyzing network traffic data to generate a main similarity measure and a secondary similarity measure for each server pair found in the network traffic data, extracting a main subset and a secondary subset of servers based on the main similarity measure and the secondary similarity measure, identifying a server that belongs to the main subset and the secondary subset, and determining a suspicious score of the server based on at least a first similarity density measure of the main subset, a second similarity density measure of the secondary subset, and a commonality measure of the main subset and the secondary subset.

A system for efficiently distributing messages to a server farm uses a hashing function and a map-based function, or combinations thereof, to distribute messages associated with a processing request. In one implementation, for example, the hashing function has inputs of an identifier for each message in a processing request, and a list of available servers. Upon identifying that any of the servers is unavailable, or will soon be unavailable, the load balancing server uses an alternate map-based assignment function for new requests, and inputs each assignment into a server map. The load balancing server can then use the map or the hashing function, as appropriate, to direct messages to an operating server. Upon receiving an updated list of available servers, the load balancing server can switch back to the hashing function after the map is depleted, and use the updated server list as an argument.

A file distribution method and system for distributing media files to authorized recipients. The method and system exploit the advantages of peer-to-peer file distribution protocols, such as BitTorrent, while maintaining security and control over the file distribution. A server farm containing a plurality of servers is placed behind the security of a distribution system, preventing unauthorized client devices from accessing the media files stored on the server farm. Media files are fragmented and stored on each of the plurality of servers within the server farm. Each server on the server farm features at least one IP address and each server is pre-seeded with a complete copy of the fragmented media file. Fragments are distributed to requesting authorized clients in accordance with a peer-to-peer file distribution protocol.

A method and apparatus are disclosed for providing data from a service to a client based on the encryption capabilities of the client. Cipher suite lists are exchanged between a client and an endpoint. On the endpoint, the cipher suite list incorporates a mapping of cipher suite names to services. The endpoint uses the client's list of cipher suites in conjunction with the mapping of cipher suite names to services to determine a cipher suite match. A service is selected based on the cipher suite match. A server farm is selected based on the service. The client is informed of this cipher suite match and the endpoint retains knowledge of the cipher suite match throughout the session. Therefore, the encrypted connection between the client and the endpoint can be disconnected and later reestablished to provide data from the particular server.

A method and apparatus for reducing disclosure of proprietary data in a networked environment includes a client node, an access control server, and an application server farm. The client node transmits a request for a file. The access control server receives the request for the file and makes an access control decision. An application server farm presents the contents of the file to the client node using an application program associated with a file type of the requested file.

Methods and systems for establishing user sessions between a client and a server or server farm can be carried out by a load balancing agent executing on a computer in communication with the client, server or server farm. The load balancing agent can intercept a connection request generated by an application executing on a client and responsively select a server on which to establish a user session. Selecting the server can be based on overbooking a particular server and choosing a server with a predetermined amount of forecasted load. Forecasted load can be determined by summing the current load on a server with a current load calculated by multiplying: the average load on the user sessions hosted by the server; by the number of cached user sessions stored on the server; and by the probability that a cached user session reconnects.

Methods and apparatus providing a dynamically sized, highly scalable and available server farm are disclosed. A Virtual Server Farm (VSF) is created out of a wide scale computing fabric (“Computing Grid”) which is physically constructed once and then logically divided up into VSFs for various organizations on demand. Each organization retains independent administrative control of a VSF. A VSF is dynamically firewalled within the Computing Grid. Allocation and control of the elements and topology in the VSF is performed by a Control Plane connected to all computing, networking, and storage elements in the computing grid through special control ports. No physical rewiring is necessary in order to construct VSFs in many different configurations, including single-tier Web server or multi-tier Web-server, application server, database server configurations.

A system and method deploys components such as computer programs on one or more of computing devices such as servers in a server farm. A deployment system communicates with the computing devices over a computer network. As a result, a data set is received for each computing device and the data set contains information indicative of characteristics of the computing devices. Computer-executable instructions capable of comparing characteristics of the at least one computing device to a set of predefined characteristic constraints are executed to determine whether the computing device meets predefined installation rules. Installation proceeds if the characteristics meet the predefined characteristic constraints.

A system and method of allocating a job submission for a computational task to a set of distributed server farms each having at least one processing entity comprising; receiving a workload request from at least one processing entity for submission to at least one of the set of distributed server farms; using at least one or more conditions associated with the computational task for accepting or rejecting at least one of the server farms to which the job submission is to be allocated; determining a server farm that can optimize the one or more conditions; and dispatching the job submission to the server farm which optimizes the at least one of the one or more conditions associated with the computational task and used for selecting the at least one of the server farms.

An automated data center management system includes one or more equipment racks housing at least one server farm equipment, each of the at least one server farm equipment having a respective attachment point, a spare equipment repository having at least one replacement equipment, and a hardware management robot. The hardware management robot includes a robotic arm having an interface point, the interface point configured to couple to the attachment point. A hardware management controller is communicates with the hardware management robot, the hardware management controller including at least one processor, and non-transitory computer readable media having encoded thereon computer software comprising a set of instructions to receive a service request indicating a server farm equipment needing service, determine a location of the server farm equipment, generate a path to the location of the server farm equipment, and transmit the path to the hardware management robot.

A method, system and apparatus for on-demand application resource allocation. In accordance with the method of the invention, an anticipated workload can be compared to a measured capacity for an application cluster in one or more server computing nodes in a server farm. If the measured capacity warrants a re-configuration of the application clusters, a new placement can be computed for application server instances in individual ones of the server computing nodes. Subsequently, the new placement can be applied to the server computing nodes in the server farm. In this regard, the applying step can include starting and stopping selected ones of the application server instances in different ones of the server computing nodes to effectuate the new placement.

An Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)-based distributed network switching system includes an ATM switching network that dynamically sets up individual switched virtual connections. The system also includes multiple access interworking function (A-IWF) devices each operating as a gateway that enables customer premises devices to directly interface into the distributed ATM switching fabric. The system further includes a centralized control and signaling interworking function (CS-IWF) device that performs call control functions and administrative functions and is adapted to interface narrowband and broadband signaling for call processing and control within the ATM switching network. The CS-IWF device may be a server farm.

A system and method of providing video drive-by data is provided to enable a street level view of a neighborhood surrounding a selected geographic location. The system includes a video and data server farm incorporation at least one video storage server that stores video image files containing video drive-by data that corresponds to a geographic location, a database server that processes a data query received from a user over the Internet that corresponds to a geographic location of interest, and an image processing server. In operation, the database server identifies video image files stored in the video storage server that correspond to the geographic location of interest contained in the data query, and transfers the video image files over a pre-processing network to the image processing server. The image processing server converts the video drive-by data to post processed video data corresponding to a desired image format, and transfers the post processed video data via post-processing network to the Internet response to the query.

Upstream devices, such as load balancers or routers, within a server farm, may be configured to route requests to the servers handling sessions for those requests using a secure (e.g. encrypted) unique ID or network address received with requests identifying how requests may be routed through the server farm. Upstream devices or a server receiving a request that is not associated with a session may generate a unique ID or select a network address identifying how the request is routed through the server farm. The server handling the request forms a session ID and returns that session ID and the unique ID to the client that originated the request. Encryption may be performed on network addresses or session IDs. Upon receiving a request corresponding to an established session, an upstream device may then decrypt routing information from the encrypted unique ID or network address and send the request downstream accordingly.

A system, method, and program for the processing of large amounts of email based on user-configurable criteria in close to real-time. The invention enables filtering of all journaled emails in an organization for the duration of a regulatory proceeding, or for audit purposes, thus greatly reducing the manual effort required to produce a targeted set of emails. The journaling feature copies all unique emails coming through the distributed email server farm to a smaller set of email mailboxes. The filtering application could run as a batch operation on each of those “journaling” mailboxes at periodic intervals or could run interactively. The user-defined filter criteria are applied to the emails filling up the “journaling” mailboxes, and matches are separated from the non-matches for analysis. The invention can be executed on offline data, such as personal message stores or individual compound message files.