Abstract: Multiple Network Attached Storage (NAS) appliances are pooled together by a virtual NAS translator, forming one common name space visible to clients. Clients send messages to the virtual NAS translator with a file name and a virtual handle of the parent directory that are concatenated to a full file-path name and compressed by a cryptographic hash function to generate a hashed-name key. The hashed-name key is matched to a storage key in a table. The full file-path name is not stored, reducing the table size. A unique entry number is returned to the client as the virtual file handle that is also stored in another table with one or more native file handles, allowing virtual handles to be translated to native handles that the NAS appliance servers use to retrieve files. File movement among NAS servers alters native file handles but not virtual handles, hiding NAS details from clients.

Abstract: A load-balancer assigns incoming requests to servers at a server farm. An atomic operation assigns both un-encrypted clear-text requests and encrypted requests from a client to the same server at the server farm. An encrypted session is started early by the atomic operation, before encryption is required. The atomic operation is initiated by a special, automatically loaded component on a web page. This component is referenced by code requiring that an encrypted session be used to retrieve the component. Keys and certificates are exchanged between a server and the client to establish the encrypted session. The server generates a secure-sockets-layer (SSL) session ID for the encrypted session. The server also generates a server-assignment cookie that identifies the server at the server farm. The server-assignment cookie is encrypted and sent to the client along with the SSL session ID. The Client decrypts the server-assignment cookie and stores it along with the SSL session ID.

Abstract: An instrument for measuring chromatic dispersion in optical fibers. The instrument comprises two independent modules, an optical source (2?) and a receiver (4?). The optical source (2?) comprises two pulse producing circuits: one driving a laser (35), which will be used as a timing reference, and the second driving a light emitting diode (LED)(34), emitting a short light pulse with a broad spectrum. The receiver (4?) comprises a wavelength-selection element (46), which filters one or several wavelengths out of the LED spectrum, a photodetector (43) for detection of the laser pulse, a photon-counting detector (41) for detection of the filtered LED pulses, and a high-resolution timing circuit (42) for measuring the time delay between the laser pulse and the LED pulse. A preferred embodiment includes the wavelength-selection element (46) which is a series of Bragg gratings, thus selecting several fixed wavelengths.

Abstract: A network traffic evaluation device is provided that may be used to warn of or prevent trafficabnormalities such as denial of service attacks. The device includes a data interface to receive one or both of network traffic and data indicative of characteristics f network traffic. The network traffic and/or data received by the data interface is processed for predeterminedcharacteristics that indicate that the network traffic contains a subset of attack traffic. Upon detection of the predetermined characteristics information defining a superset is provided. The superset is a portion of the network traffic that contains the subset and defines network traffic that may be redirected and/or blocked by a network device.

Abstract: An instrument for measuring chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion and spectral attenuation comprising a chromatic dispersion analyzer based on the photon-counting time-of-flight technique, a fixed analyzer (polarizer) for PMD measurement, an optical switch placed in front of the photon-counting detector to change the measurement mode between chromatic dispersion, PMD, and spectral attenuation testing, respectively. The object of the invention is to provide an optical spectrum analyzer which uses most of the components already present in a time-of-flight based chromatic dispersion analyzer for optical fibers. Integrating select components to this chromatic dispersion analyzer then highly increases the measurement capabilities of this instrument.

Abstract: A load-balancer assigns incoming requests to servers at a server farm. An atomic operation assigns both un-encrypted clear-text requests and encrypted requests from a client to the same server at the server farm. An encrypted session is started early by the atomic operation, before encryption is required. The atomic operation is initiated by a special, automatically loaded component on a web page. This component is referenced by code requiring that an encrypted session be used to retrieve the component. Keys and certificates are exchanged between a server and the client to establish the encrypted session. The server generates a secure-sockets-layer (SSL) session ID for the encrypted session. The server also generates a server-assignment cookie that identifies the server at the server farm. The server-assignment cookie is encrypted and sent to the client along with the SSL session ID. The Client decrypts the server-assignment cookie and stores it along with the SSL session ID.

Abstract: A load-balancer assigns incoming requests to servers at a server farm. An atomic operation assigns both un-encrypted clear-text requests and encrypted requests from a client to the same server at the server farm. An encrypted session is started early by the atomic operation, before encryption is required. The atomic operation is initiated by a special, automatically loaded component on a web page. This component is referenced by code requiring that an encrypted session be used to retrieve the component. Keys and certificates are exchanged between a server and the client to establish the encrypted session. The server generates a secure-sockets-layer (SSL) session ID for the encrypted session. The server also generates a server-assignment cookie that identifies the server at the server farm. The server-assignment cookie is encrypted and sent to the client along with the SSL session ID. The Client decrypts the server-assignment cookie and stores it along with the SSL session ID.

Abstract: An optimal path through the Internet to a client is determined by the server during connection establishment. During the 3-way handshake that establishes a connection, a web server ordinarily sends a single SYN+ACK packet to the client. Instead of sending just one SYN+ACK packet, the server is modified to send multiple SYN+ACK packets, each using a different path to the client. When the multiple SYN+ACK packets are sent from the server at the same time, the first packet that reaches the client used the fastest path through the Internet. The client responds to this first SYN+ACK packet with an ACK packet back to the server. The other SYN+ACK packets that use slower paths arrive at the client after the first SYN+ACK packet and are ignored by the client as being out-of-order. The server includes a different sequence number with each SYN+ACK packet. The client increments this sequence number and includes the incremented sequence number in the ACK packet.

Abstract: A client-side dispatcher resides on a client machine below high-level client applications and TCP/IP layers. The client-side dispatcher performs TCP state migration to relocate the client-server TCP connection to a new server by storing packets locally and later altering them before transmission. The client-side dispatcher operates in several modes. In an error-recovery mode, when a server fails, error packets from the server are intercepted by the client-side dispatcher. Stored connection packet's destination addresses are changed to an address of a relocated server. The altered packets then establish a connection with the relocated server. Source addresses of packets from the server are changed to that of the original server that crashed so that the client application is not aware of the error. In a delayed URL-based dispatch mode, the client-side dispatcher intercepts connection packets before they are sent over the network.

Abstract: A multi-node server transmits world-wide-web pages to network-based browser clients. A load balancer receives all requests from clients because they use a virtual address for the entire site. The load balancer makes a connection with the client and waits for the URL from the client. The URL specifies the requested resource. The load balancer waits to perform load balancing until after the location of the requested resource is known. The connection and URL request are passed from the load balancer to a second node having the requested resource. The load balancer re-plays the initial connection packet sequence to the second node, but modifies the address to that for the second node. The network software is modified to generate the physical network address of the second node, but then changes the destination address back to the virtual address. The second node transmits the requested resource directly to the client, with the virtual address as its source.