Patents by Inventor Donald Francis Ferguson

Donald Francis Ferguson 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: 20080140690
    Abstract: An apparatus, system, and storage medium that in an embodiment determine the active partitions of an application and assign the active partitions among servers via a routing table. The routing table is sent to a client, who uses the routing table to send requests and/or messages to the active partitions. In an embodiment, the routing table includes identifiers of the active partitions and the associated partitions. If one of the servers fails or if the partitions have a loading imbalance, the partitions are reassigned via the routing table.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 12, 2008
    Publication date: June 12, 2008
    Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Gennaro A. Cuomo, Donald Francis Ferguson, William T. Newport
  • Patent number: 7356613
    Abstract: A method, apparatus, system, and signal-bearing medium that in an embodiment determine the active partitions of an application and assign the active partitions among servers via a routing table. The routing table is sent to a client, who uses the routing table to send requests and/or messages to the active partitions. In an embodiment, the routing table includes identifiers of the active partitions and the associated partitions. If one of the servers fails or if the partitions have a loading imbalance, the partitions are reassigned via the routing table.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 2004
    Date of Patent: April 8, 2008
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Gennaro A. Cuomo, Donald Francis Ferguson, William T. Newport
  • Patent number: 6697826
    Abstract: An information-handling system operable within a distributed object computing environment (DOCE) is disclosed that includes an object-based program for controlling object searching in a constraint-based filtering mode over said DOCE. The object-based program for controlling object searching further comprises means for providing hierarchical storage of a name/binding value during a search. Additionally, the object-based program includes a means for providing the addition of properties as name/value pair sequence to each node within a tree search performed by the object-based program. Further, the search mechanism includes means for providing recursive searching of the group properties as well as means for providing meta-knowledge of the class within the DOCE for attribute search.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 1996
    Date of Patent: February 24, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Vinoj Narayan Kumar, Isabelle Marie Rouvellou, Donald Francis Ferguson
  • Patent number: 6161145
    Abstract: In a data processing environment where a client requests a server to perform part of its processing, a method of updating the client's version of server-related data without requiring the client to be a server, includes steps of: receiving, at a control point server, a first request from the client requesting that server-related data be transferred from the control point server to the client; and in response to the first request, sending the server-related data from the control point server to the client, along with a unique bind token identifying a version number of the server-related data such that each time the server-related data changes a new unique bind token is associated with the data, where the client uses the server-related data to form a second request for the server to perform part of the client's processing, and where the client sends said bind token to the server as part of the second request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 8, 1997
    Date of Patent: December 12, 2000
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew John Bainbridge, Stephen James Cocks, Donald Francis Ferguson, Thomas Freund, Avraham Leff, Glyn Normington, James Thomas Rayfield, Robert Anthony Storey
  • Patent number: 6014700
    Abstract: A method of performing workload management within an object-oriented client/server computing environment wherein one of a plurality of servers is chosen to satisfy a client request based on at least one workload management policy, said method, which takes place within the client, includes steps of: deciding whether a client application program has issued a request for a server to do some work; forming an extended object reference based on said request, said extended object reference having, in addition to a server address field and an object key field, at least one additional field; accessing workload management policy data based on said extended object reference; and selecting one of said plurality of servers based on said accessed workload management policy data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 8, 1997
    Date of Patent: January 11, 2000
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew John Bainbridge, Stephen James Cocks, Donald Francis Ferguson, Thomas Freund, Avraham Leff, Glyn Normington, James Thomas Rayfield, Robert Anthony Storey
  • Patent number: 5675797
    Abstract: A resource allocation manager and technique for servers within a computer system. Resources are initially allocated to servers and in order to enhance system performance, resources are reallocated based on a minimization of the maximum performance index. In one example, the server with the largest performance index is allocated additional resources and the server with the smallest performance index loses some of its resources.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 24, 1994
    Date of Patent: October 7, 1997
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Jen-Yao Chung, Donald Francis Ferguson, Christos Nicholas Nikolaou, James Zu-Chia Teng, George Wei Wang