Patent ID: 6405201
Filing Date: 2002-06-11
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A method for reducing network traffic for remote file append operations by keeping track of file append operations on a local computer system when possible instead of always communicating with a remote file server, comprising:maintaining an allocated space value at the local computer system indicating the amount of space available on the remote file server; receiving a request at the local computer system to append additional data to a file residing in non-volatile storage on the remote file server; determining if sufficient space has been allocated to accommodate the additional data on the remote file server by referencing the allocated space value on the local computer system without having to access the remote file server to determine the amount of space available on the remote file server; and if sufficient space has been allocated to accommodate the additional data past the end of the file on the remote file server, writing the additional data to the end of a locally cached copy of the file in the local computer, updating a file length value stored in the local computer system to reflect the additional data, and updating the allocated space value stored in the local computer system to reflect the additional data appended to the file.