Patents by Inventor Brian Howells

Brian Howells has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20070239719
    Abstract: A shared memory device called the Coupling Facility (CF) is used to record the indoubt transaction entries for each member of the database cluster, avoiding the CPU cost and elapsed time impact of persisting this information to disk (either via a log write or a relational table I/O). The CF provides full read/write access and data coherency for concurrent access by all the members in the database cluster. At any given point in time, the CF will contain the full list of indoubt transactions for the entire database cluster. CF duplexing is used to guarantee the integrity of the CF structure used for the indoubt list. In the event of complete loss of both CF structures (which will not happen except in major disaster situations), data sharing group restart processing can reconstruct the CF structures from the individual member logs.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 19, 2007
    Publication date: October 11, 2007
    Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Curt Cotner, Brian Howell, Jeffrey Josten, James Pickel
  • Publication number: 20060026177
    Abstract: A method and system of subsetting a group of server systems configures a server system with a group name and a group port, and with at least one subset name and subset port. The server system, when activated, reads its configuration and registers with a system routing entity as being part of the group name and the group port, and as being part of the subset name and the subset port. In this manner, server systems can be targeted via its subset name and subset port, while also accessible via the common name and port for the group. If the group includes a workload balancer, the server system also registers with the workload balancer using the group name and the subset name, such that workload balancing is provided for the subset.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 29, 2004
    Publication date: February 2, 2006
    Inventors: Brian Howell, James Pickel, Hugh Smith
  • Publication number: 20050125445
    Abstract: A shared memory device called the Coupling Facility (CF) is used to record the indoubt transaction entries for each member of the database cluster, avoiding the CPU cost and elapsed time impact of persisting this information to disk (either via a log write or a relational table I/O). The CF provides full read/write access and data coherency for concurrent access by all the members in the database cluster. At any given point in time, the CF will contain the full list of indoubt transactions for the entire database cluster. CF duplexing is used to guarantee the integrity of the CF structure used for the indoubt list. In the event of complete loss of both CF structures (which will not happen except in major disaster situations), data sharing group restart processing can reconstruct the CF structures from the individual member logs.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 4, 2003
    Publication date: June 9, 2005
    Inventors: Curt Cotner, Brian Howell, Jeffrey Josten, James Pickel
  • Publication number: 20050125410
    Abstract: A method and system for providing package resolution in a database system is disclosed. The method and system comprise providing a statement within a server which allows an application to identify a list of package collections. The method and system further includes executing the statement to obtain the appropriate package. A system and method in accordance with the present invention provides a new current package path value, which is set via a statement referred to as Set Current Package Path. The SET CURRENT PACKAGE PATH statement allows the application to supply a precedence list of qualified package collections during execution time, therefore the scheme for resolving packages can be changed at any point during execution. The SET CURRENT PACKAGE PATH statement improves application development by making the package resolution mechanism less error prone and less tedious for the application developer, while providing an optimal-performance solution in the client-server environment.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 4, 2003
    Publication date: June 9, 2005
    Inventors: Curt Cotner, Tammie Dang, Brian Howell, Fung Lee, Hui-An Lee, Charles Lin, Claire McFeely, Jennifer Ou, James Pickel, Jay Yothers
  • Patent number: D368721
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 1995
    Date of Patent: April 9, 1996
    Inventors: Brian Howell, Benjamin Beck