Abstract: A technique for implementing an untethered access point (UAP) mesh involves enabling AP-local switching at one or more UAPs of the mesh. A system constructed according to the technique may include an untethered access point (UAP), including: a radio; a backhaul service set identifier (SSID) stored in a computer-readable medium; an anchor access point (AAP) selection engine embodied in a computer-readable medium. In operation, the AAP selection engine may use the radio to attempt to associate with the AAP if a beaconed backhaul SSID matches the stored backhaul SSID. A method according to the technique may include beaconing with a backhaul SSID, acting in concert with an upstream switch as an authenticator for a downstream station that responds to the beacon; providing limited local switching functionality for the downstream station.

Abstract: A technique for implementing AP-local dynamic switching involves Layer 2 switching. This may be accomplished by providing data associated with wireless stations to an AP sufficient to enable the AP to determine whether traffic from a particular wireless station should be locally switched. Alternatively, the wireless station may be able to determine whether to locally switch traffic based upon the traffic itself. For example, it may be desirable to AP-locally switch voice traffic to avoid latency, which is particularly detrimental to voice transmissions such as voiceover-IP. Traffic that is not to be switched locally is Layer 2 tunneled upstream.

Abstract: A technique for implementing an untethered access point (UAP) mesh involves enabling AP-local switching at one or more UAPs of the mesh. A system constructed according to the technique may include an untethered access point (UAP), including: a radio; a backhaul service set identifier (SSID) stored in a computer-readable medium; an anchor access point (AAP) selection engine embodied in a computer-readable medium. In operation, the AAP selection engine may use the radio to attempt to associate with the AAP if a beaconed backhaul SSID matches the stored backhaul SSID. A method according to the technique may include beaconing with a backhaul SSID, acting in concert with an upstream switch as an authenticator for a downstream station that responds to the beacon; providing limited local switching functionality for the downstream station.

Abstract: A cache management system for dynamically switching between record caching and track caching. Statistics are collected within the cache management system to determine the type and amount of locality associated with a specific data set currently within the cache. Using these statistics, metrics of the actual hit ratio, whole-track hit ratio, and other-record-hit ratio are generated. The metrics are periodically reviewed for a given band, and the band is placed into one of three cache modes accordingly. The mode assignment determines what type of staging will be performed for data within the band in the event of a miss. The possible modes are: track mode for track-based staging, record mode for staging of a single record only, or uncached mode if no data is to be staged. If a band has been assigned to either record or track mode, the assignment is re-evaluated after for a predetermined number of I/O's (128).

Abstract: A system and method for reducing device wait time in response to a host initiated write operation modifying a data block. The system includes a host computer channel connected to a storage controller which has cache memory and a nonvolatile storage buffer in a first embodiment. An identical system makes up the second embodiment with the exception that there is no nonvolatile storage buffer in the storage controller of the second embodiment. The controller in either embodiment is coupled to a cache storage drawer containing a plurality of DASD devices for implementing a RAID parity data protection scheme, and for permanently storing data. The drawer has nonvolatile cache memory which is used for accepting data destaged from controller cache. In a first embodiment, no commit reply is sent to the controller to indicate that data has been written to DASD. Instead a status information block is created to indicate that the data has been destaged from controller cache but is not committed.