Patent ID: 6243751
Filing Date: 2001-06-05
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
An apparatus for coupling a first number of clients to a second number of ports smaller than the first number of ports on at least one server, the apparatus comprising:a set of a plurality of addressable client ports, each capable of communicating with at least one of the clients;at least one server port, each capable of communicating with at least one of the ports of the at least one server; anda resource manager session maintainer module coupled to at least one of the addressable client ports and at least one of the server ports for preparing and transmitting to at least one of the server ports a command to instruct the server to:associate a first user with at least one of the at least one of the server ports associated with a second user prior to said association with the first user;disassociate the second user from the at least one port associated with the first user; andpreserve at least a portion of status data for the second user, said status data comprising data capable of being used by the server to access data accessible by the second user, responsive to a subsequent server command from the second user.