Abstract: Access by multiple hosts, such as computers, to a data storage device by way of a network while maintaining data integrity. In one embodiment, a method for accessing the storage device includes acquiring a resource “lock” that provides exclusive access to one of the hosts at a time. In another embodiment, the file systems of a first and second host provide file system attributes stored in a storage device to provide mutually exclusive access for each host to free blocks of the device. In another embodiment, a networked system contains a first host having exclusive direct access to a storage device over a digital network. A second host requiring access to the storage device communicates with the first host by way of the digital network. File access requests generated by the second host are transferred by a redirection filter driver within the second host to the first host.

Abstract: A server architecture based on asymmetric 3-way TCP (ATCP) is disclosed that can distribute the work among multiple processors. In particular, the server system has a front-end server receiving a service request from a client. The server system also has a back-end server that receives a command from the front-end server. The back-end server sends the result back directly to the client in a pseudo packet that looks like a packet sent from the front-end server. The pseudo packet has the IP address and the port number of the front-end server. A scalable system is achieved because the bottleneck through the front-end server is avoided.

Abstract: Access by multiple hosts, such as computers, to a data storage device by way of a network while maintaining data integrity. In one embodiment, a method for accessing the storage device includes acquiring a resource “lock” that provides exclusive access to one of the hosts at a time. In another embodiment, the file systems of a first and second host provide file system attributes stored in a storage device to provide mutually exclusive access for each host to free blocks of the device. In another embodiment, a networked system contains a first host having exclusive direct access to a storage device over a digital network. A second host requiring access to the storage device communicates with the first host by way of the digital network. File access requests generated by the second host are transferred by a redirection filter driver within the second host to the first host.