Granted Patent B1

US 7,231,541 · App. 10/779,984 · Granted Jun 12, 2007

Abstract

Claims (31)

1. A method, designated as a “soaker application” and operating in a system using multiple applications, for locating applications that are over-consuming memory resources to the detriment of other applications sharing these memory resources, comprising the steps of:

(a) using said soaker application to consume a pre-determined amount of memory at a pre-determined rate and including the steps of:

(a1) setting a rate of memory consumption according to a selected choice of low, medium, high, or super high levels of memory consumption in shared memory resources;

(a2) selecting a time interval within which said selected rate of memory consumption will operate;

(a3) utilizing an MPEG digital stream of data from a movie as a source of data to be consumed by said memory resources;

(b) setting a memory threshold value to memory consumption including the step of:

(b1) initiating a failover action when said memory threshold is reached so that processing is shifted to another node in said system.

2. In a cluster load balancer network, a system for determining the moment of failover from a stalled node to another operating node comprising:

(a) means to utilize a soaker application to feed digital input data to memory resources shared by a multiple number of operating applications, said means including:

(a1) means to select the rate of memory consumption per a selected unit time according to the selective choice of the user including the steps of:

(a1a) means to supply a digital data stream, from a digital movie in MPEG format, for digital data input to said shared memory resources; wherein said means (a1a) to supply digital data includes:

(a1a1) selection means for choosing loading speed rates of low, medium, high, or super speed rates per second;

(a1b) means to pause (stall) said digital input to said shared memory resources;

(a1c) means to record and hold the frame number of said digital movie at the point of closure during stall or stoppage;

(a1d) means to resume said digital data input stream from the exact frame on which it had been paused (stopped, stalled);

(a2) means to recognize a threshold value of memory loading which matches the limitations of the shared memory resources;

(a3) means to initiate a failover of processing operations to an auxiliary node of processors when a stalled mode occurs.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein said selection means (a1a1) includes choice of rates of:

(i) 3000 bytes/second;

(ii) 100,000 bytes/second;

(iii) 5 million bytes/second;

(iv) 10 million bytes/second;

(v) 50 million bytes/second.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein said means (a1b) includes:

(a1ba) means to close down said soaker application.

5. The system of claim 2 wherein said means (a) to utilize includes:

(i) means to record the state of the soaker application when it is closed by the operating system by recording the frame count of the digital movie in MPEG format being played for input.

6. The system of claim 2 wherein said means (a) to utilize a soaker application includes:

(ii) means to record in a system registry whether said soaker application was shut down by a user, by the operating system, or by some other cause.

7. The system of claim 6 which includes:

(iii) means to query said system registry upon a re-launch to find the reason the soaker application program was closed and to re-open said MPEG movie format to the recorded frame position where it had previously been stopped.

Assignments (6)