US 7,969,911 B2 · Hierarchical communication system providing intelligent data, program and processing migration

Abstract

A hierarchical communication system, arranged in a spanning tree configuration, is described in which wired and wireless communication networks exhibiting substantially different characteristics are employed in an overall scheme to link portable or mobile computing devices. Copies of data, program code and processing resources are migrated from their source toward requesting destinations based on request frequency, communication link costs and available local storage and/or processing resources. Each appropriately configured network device acts as an active participant in network migration. In addition, portable two-dimensional (2-D) code reading terminals are configured to wirelessly communicate compressed 2-D images toward stationary access servers that identify the code image through decoding and through comparison with a database of images that have previously been decoded and stored.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A method for communication, comprising:

supporting wireless communication via a plurality of access devices, the plurality of access devices comprising a first access device and a second access device downstream of the first access device;
initially accessing program code or data from the second access device by the first access device;
forwarding the accessed program code or the accessed data to a mobile communication device;
accessing the second access device via the first access device;
retaining program code or data in the second access device;
determining whether to migrate a copy of the program code or the data from the second access device to the first access device based on one or more migration factors;
and
wherein the one or more migration factors comprise one or more of a count of the number of times that the program code or the data is requested, a duration of time over which the count is taken, a cost of retrieving the program code or the data from a downstream source, a size of the program code or the data, and remaining local storage capacity.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Hierarchical communication system providing intelligent data, program and processing migration

Life of this patent

Hierarchical communication system providing intelligent data, program and processing migration

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims18