Method and system for downloading software products with reduced transmission time
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsDomenico Raguseo, Marco Loperfido
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and a corresponding system for downloading software products (from a server to a client) are provided. The downloading of the product is started by the server as usual. Each proxy between the server and the client detects the starting of the downloading. If the proxy has a copy of the same product already available in its cache, the proxy notifies the server accordingly. In this case, the server stops the downloading. The product is instead provided to the client directly by the proxy. As a result, the time required for the downloading is strongly reduced; however, this result is achieved without adversely affecting the security of the process (since it is always controlled by the server directly).
Claims9
A method of downloading digitally encoded products in a data processing system with distributed architecture, the method including the steps of:
- a source computer starting delivering a product to a target computer,
- an intermediate computer between the source computer and the target computer detecting the starting of the delivering,
- the intermediate computer verifying an availability of a copy of the product on the intermediate computer,
- the intermediate computer notifying the availability to the source computer,
- the source computer stopping the delivering in response to the notification of the availability, and
- the intermediate computer delivering the copy of the product to the target computer;
- wherein the source computer enables the intermediate computer to deliver the copy of the product to the target computer in response to the notification of the availability.
The method according to any claim from 1, further including the step under the control of the intermediate computer of storing a memory structure including an indication of the products available on the intermediate computer, the step of verifying the availability of the copy of the product on the intermediate computer including searching the indication of the product in the memory structure.
A data processing system with distributed architecture for downloading digitally encoded products, the system including at least one source computer having means for starting delivering a product to a target computer and at least one intermediate computer between the source computer and the target computer having means for detecting the starting of the delivering, means for verifying an availability of a copy of the product on the intermediate computer, means for notifying the availability to the source computer, and means for delivering the copy of the product to the target computer, the source computer further including means for stopping the delivering in response to the notification of the availability and including means for enabling the intermediate computer to deliver the copy of the product to the target computer in response to the notification of the availability.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.