Patent ID: 9563388
Date: 2017-02-07
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L

Claim:
1. A method of sharing a hosted device in a computer network, the computer network having at least one hosted device and a plurality of hosts, the at least one hosted device physically separate from the plurality of hosts, the method comprising: registering, using a hosted-device address of a hosted device physically separate from the plurality of hosts, the hosted device with a router; associating, using the router, a network-wide identifier with the hosted-device address of the hosted device physically separate from the plurality of hosts, wherein the network-wide identifier includes a computer network address; mapping, using the router, the network-wide identifier to a first network address of a first host that hosts the hosted device physically separate from the plurality of hosts; communicating, using the router, the network-wide identifier of the hosted device to one or more devices in the computer network without communicating any identifying information of the first host to the one or more devices such that the one or more devices map the hosted device to the network-wide identifier associated with the hosted-device rather than to a host-specific path associated with the first host; routing data packets received at the router from the one or more devices that have the network-wide identifier of the hosted device as a destination address to the first host based on the mapped first network address; determining, using the router, the first host is no longer available; unmapping, using the router, the network-wide identifier from the first network address in response to determining the first host is no longer available; mapping, using the router, the network-wide identifier to a second network address of a second host in response to detecting that the hosted device physically separate from the plurality of hosts is hosted by the second host; and after mapping the network-wide identifier to the second network address, routing data packets received at the router from the one or more devices that have the network-wide identifier of the hosted device as a destination address to the second host based on the mapped second network address.