SYSTEM FOR LOCATING A NODE CONTAINING A REQUESTED RESOURCE AND FOR SELECTIVELY VERIFYING THE PRESENCE OF THE RESOURCE AT THE NODE

• Main Authors: CHOI; OWEN H, RAFALOW; LEE M, STUMP; MELINDA P, KNAUTH; JEFFREY G, SIDDALL, WILLIAM E, FLETCHER; JAMES C, KRAMER; DIRK K, HARTER; JOHNATHAN L, MCKINNON; JOSEPH L, DRAKE, JR.; JOHN E, LERNER; MICHAEL A
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 22.06.1993
• Subjects: ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION

The present invention is an improvement of a LOCATE process used to locate resources in a computer network always requiring that information about a target resource be verified by forwarding a LOCATE request to the node owning the target resource. The present invention improves upon this process by use of selective verification. If predetermined conditions are met, a node in the network may reply to a received LOCATE request by using information about the target resource found in its cache directory. The LOCATE request need not be propagated to the node owning the target resource except for predetermined types of sessions or where past attempts to use selective verification have not been successful.