초록 ▼

An intelligent network agent intercepts transactions between clients and servers to perform Distributed Information Logistics Services (DILS) functions such as automatically retrieving updated files from remote servers and delivering them to local client programs. For example, HTTP clients and HTTPD

An intelligent network agent intercepts transactions between clients and servers to perform Distributed Information Logistics Services (DILS) functions such as automatically retrieving updated files from remote servers and delivering them to local client programs. For example, HTTP clients and HTTPD servers are connectionless and stateless, thus there is no way for a server to update a browser automatically when an HTML document is changed. The invention provides a method to update any number of clients from any number of servers without making any changes to currently existing HTTP clients or HTTPD servers. Furthermore, the invention can provide various other DILS services for clients to reduce latency and communication costs for members of a group with interests in similar objects. For example, the intelligent network agent maintains a cache of objects of interest to the group of clients, a log of changes to the objects, a list of the clients interested in the objects, a list of significant change detection methods for the objects, a list of search specifications for the objects, lists of client notification methods, and lists of general interest specifications for the clients.

대표청구항 ▼

[ What is claimed is:] [1.] In a distributed computing system having a network of computers linked for accessing objects distributed among said computers, some of said computers executing object access software enabling interested parties to request access to said objects for display of accessed one

[ What is claimed is:] [1.] In a distributed computing system having a network of computers linked for accessing objects distributed among said computers, some of said computers executing object access software enabling interested parties to request access to said objects for display of accessed ones of said objects, a computer-implemented method of operating at least one of said computers for automatically notifying said interested parties when objects of interest are changed, said computer-implemented method comprising the steps of:a) accepting from said interested parties specifications of the objects of interest;b) maintaining in memory a list of the interested parties interested in each of the objects of interest;c) detecting occurrence of changes in the objects of interest, and in response to detecting the occurrence of a change in an object of interest, determining whether an update notification would then be desirable for each interested party in the list of interested parties interested in the object of interest in which the occurrence of change is detected; andd) upon determining that an update notification would then be desirable for one of the interested parties in response to detecting the occurrence of change in one of said objects of interest, notifying said one of the interested parties of the occurrence of change in said one of said objects of interest for display of said one of said objects of interest.