Brevet US5887170 - System for classifying and sending selective requests to different ...

United States Patent [w]

Ansberry et al.

US005887170A [ii] Patent Number: 5,887,170 [45] Date of Patent: Mar. 23, 1999

[54] SYSTEM FOR CLASSIFYING AND SENDING SELECTIVE REQUESTS TO DIFFERENT PARTICIPANTS OF A COLLABORATIVE APPLICATION THEREBY ALLOWING CONCURRENT EXECUTION OF COLLABORATIVE AND NONCOLLABORATIVE APPLICATIONS

[75] Inventors: Catherine Malia Ansberry, Redmond;

Jay Douglas Freer, Bellevue; Todd W.
Fuqua; Erik Peter Mesterton, both of
Redmond, all of Wash.; Catherine Ann
Stillwagon, Upper Saddle River, N.J.;
Ching-Yun Yang, Austin, Tex.

[73] Assignee: International Business Machines
Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.

[21] Appl. No.: 387,501

[22] Filed: Feb. 13, 1995

[51] Int. CI. G06F 15/16

[52] U.S. CI 395/687; 395/200.35

[58] Field of Search 395/680, 200.35,

395/682

[56] References Cited

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Primary Examiner—-Thomas C. Lee
Assistant Examiner—Albert Wang

Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Monica D. Lee; Andrew J. Dillon

A method and system provide for selectively distributing communications between an application and multiple servers, allowing cooperative use of a single copy of an application. The system is situated between an application and the multiple servers. Requests from the application, responses to the requests, and events from the multiple servers, are managed in such a way that each server believes it is connected directly to the application and the application believes it is connected directly to a single server. The requests are categorized and distributed to the servers based on the type of request. The responses to these requests may be sent to the application or discarded based on the type of request and the role of the server sending the request. The events are also categorized and, based on the role of the server causing the event, they may be passed on to the application or discarded.

10 Claims, 3 Drawing Sheets