Patent ID: 6941384
Filing Date: 2005-09-06
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of recovering from a failure of a primary routing communication protocol stack which routes communications over connections to a virtual Internet Protocol address (VIPA) and at least one port associated with the VIPA to a plurality of other communication protocol stacks associated by the routing communication protocol stack with the VIPA and the at least one port, the method comprising: identifying at least one of a plurality of communication protocol stacks other than the primary routing communication protocol stack in a cluster of data processing systems containing the primary routing communication protocol stack as a backup routing communication protocol stack; storing at the backup routing communication protocol stack an identification of communication protocol stacks associated with the VIPA and the at least one port as candidate target stacks; receiving messages at the backup routing communication protocol stack identifying ones of the communication protocol stacks having application instances bound to the VIPA and listening on the at least one port as current actual target stacks; identifying connections to the VIPA and the at least one port for current actual target stacks; constructing a routing table from the received messages identifying the connections to the VIPA so as to provide routing path information to current actual target stacks associated with the connection; and routing messages on the connections to the VIPA and the at least one port to the current actual target stacks associated with the connections through the backup routing communication protocol stack utilizing the constructed routing table.