Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates forwarding fragments of a packet received from a source node to a destination node, wherein the destination node is determined based upon information within a first fragment of the packet. The system operates by receiving at least one fragment of the packet at an interface node from the source node. The system uses a packet identifier from the fragment to look up an entry for the packet within a packet forwarding data structure. If this entry specifies the destination node, the system forwards the fragment to the destination node. If the entry does not specify the destination node, and if the fragment is not the first fragment of the packet, the system links the fragment into the entry for the packet within the packet forwarding data structure, so that the fragment can be forwarded to the destination node when the destination node later becomes known.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system for forwarding a packet between nodes in a clustered computing system. The system operates by receiving the packet at an interface node in the clustered computing system. This packet includes a source address specifying a location of a client that the packet originated from, and a destination address specifying a service provided by the clustered computing system. The system selects a server node in the clustered computing system to send the packet to from a plurality of server nodes that are able to provide the service. Next, the system forwards the packet to the server node so that the server node can provide the service to the client by, attaching a transport header to the packet, the transport header containing an address of the server node, and sending the packet to the server node through an interface. This interface is used for communications between the interface node and other nodes in the clustered computing system.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that uses a packet distribution table to distribute packets to server nodes in a cluster of nodes that operate in concert to provide at least one service. The system operates by receiving a packet at an interface node in the cluster of nodes. This packet includes a source address specifying a location of a client that the packet originated from, and a destination address specifying a service provided by the cluster of nodes (and possibly a protocol). The system uses the destination address to lookup a packet distribution table. The system then performs a function that maps the source address to an entry in the packet distribution table, and retrieves an identifier specifying a server node from the entry in the packet distribution table. Next, the system forwards the packet to the server node specified by the identifier so that the server node can perform a service for the client.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that allows an I/O request to proceed when a primary server that is processing the I/O request fails, and a secondary server takes over for the primary server. Upon receiving an I/O request from an application running on a client, the system stores parameters for the I/O request on the client, and sends the I/O request to the primary server. Next, the system allows the application on the client to continue executing while the I/O request is being processed. If the primary server fails after the I/O request is sent to the primary server, but before an I/O request completion indicator returns from the primary server, the system retries the I/O request to the secondary server using the parameters stored on the client. The I/O request may originate from a number of different sources, including a file system access, an I/O request from a database system, and a paging request from a virtual memory system.