Abstract:
A method and apparatus for verifying the content contained on components of a distributed network is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of selecting at least one parameter specifying at least one content associated with a first selected component, comparing the at least one content associated with the selected parameter associated with the first selected component to the at least one content associated with the selected parameter associated with a second selected component, and providing an indication when the value of the at least one content associated with the first and second components is not the same. In one aspect of the invention, the method disclosed is further repeated for each component in the system by comparing a prior tested component with a next selected component.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATION 
     This application is related to commonly-owned concurrently filed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/130,042, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Automated Time-Based Peer-to Peer Thresholding,” issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,626,939, the contents of which are incorporated by reference herein. 
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     This application relates to the field of distributed systems and more specifically with a method and apparatus for determining network component content using based peer-to-peer comparison. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The use of computer networks has become an integral part of the way businesses provide goods and services to their customers. One advantage the use of the network provides is to enable the distribution of applications and the business logic that they are comprised of closer to the actual user, or customer. This enables these businesses to offer higher levels of service to disparate groups of customers in a wider geographic area than ever before. This opportunity has also enabled to businesses to allow customers access to the network, albeit limited, for example, to directly track their purchases. In this case, each customer may have access to standardized or “tailored” application software packages or to custom developed software packages, to perform desired operations. 
     As the networks continue to expand in size and utilization, it becomes important that the network be operating properly. In one aspect, it is critical that information or content among all the components of a network be timely and consistent. For example, in a retail network, it is important that an addition of merchandise or changes to price, color, and quantity of merchandise is reflected on all components of the performed by a mass transmission of all, or updated portions, of the content, to each of the network elements. 
     However, it is often difficult to determine whether all the network components are properly updated and contain the same information. For example, if during the mass transmission of the updated content, a link or component failure occurs, then the updated content may not be properly received by one or more network components or elements. 
     Currently, one method to determine whether all the network elements contain the same content, is to compare the content on each network element with a master copy or version of content. This requires that the device, e.g., server, hosting the master version be continuously occupied as the master version is compared individually to the copy on each network element intended to have such information or content. 
     However, this convention method of comparison is expensive in network bandwidth and time as a master version must be maintained and an “item-by-item” comparison must be made on each network element. Hence, there is a need in the industry for a method and apparatus for determining whether content has been satisfactorily deployed to network elements. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     A method and apparatus for verifying the content contained on components of a distributed network is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of selecting at least one parameter specifying at least one content associated with a first selected component, comparing the at least one content associated with the selected parameter associated with the first selected component to the at least one content associated with the selected parameter associated with a second selected component, and providing an indication when the value of the at least one content associated with the first and second components is not the same. In one aspect of the invention, the method disclosed is further repeated for each component in the system by comparing a prior tested component with a next selected component. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES 
         FIG. 1  illustrates a conventional network configuration; 
         FIG. 2A  illustrates an example of a redundancy group in accordance with the principles of the invention; 
         FIG. 2B  illustrates a second example of a redundancy group in accordance with the principles of the invention; 
         FIG. 3  illustrates an exemplary process for peer-to-peer comparison in accordance with the principles of the invention; 
         FIG. 4  illustrates an exemplary process for processing peer-to-peer comparisons for the process shown in  FIG. 3 ; and 
         FIG. 5  illustrates an exemplary apparatus for implementing the processing shown herein. 
     
    
    
     It is to be understood that these drawings are solely for purposes of illustrating the concepts of the invention and are not intended as a definition of the limits of the invention. The embodiments shown in the figures herein and described in the accompanying detailed description are to be used as illustrative embodiments and should not be construed as the only manner of practicing the invention. Also, the same reference numerals, possibly supplemented with reference characters where appropriate, have been used to identify similar elements. 
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       FIG. 1  illustrates a conventional enterprise network configuration  100  including multi-tier network  110  through which a network owner, e.g., a manufacturer, retailer or provider of services, may construct to enable users to communicate with the network owner. In this illustrated configuration, network  110 , which may represent a public network, such as the Internet, that provides a communication linkage between the network owner&#39;s edge servers  120 . 1 - 120 . n  and routers  122 . 1 - 122 . m  components or elements. Edge server components  120 . 1 - 120 . n  provide a means for communicating between users, represented as nodes  130 . 1 - 130 . p , and the information or content contained on the network owners internal server or router components.  122 . 1 - 122 . m    
     Although not shown, it would be recognized that network configuration  100  may further include a plurality of load balancer components or elements to balance the traffic load between the edge routers  120 . 1 - 120 . n  and routers  122 . 1 - 122 . m . Also not shown are data bases that may be in communication, via load balancers or switches, to each of the network owners&#39; routers or server components  122 . 1 - 122 . m . The database components may be used to store information regarding the owner&#39;s business and practice. This information may include, for example, inventory, invoices, credit card numbers, sales, transactions, user personal identification, etc 
     Typically, users  130 . 1 - 130 . p  communicate with one or another of the edge servers component  120 . 1 - 120 . n . For example, user  130 . 1  may access the owner&#39;s network  110  via edge server component  120 . n , as represented by the solid line, or via edge server component  120 . 1 , represented by the dashed line. The selection of one edge server over another may be determined based on factors such as the communication medium, edge server load, etc. Such factors are known and need not be discussed in detail herein. 
       FIG. 2A  illustrates an example of the formation of redundancy groups wherein network components, having substantially the same properties or attributes, are represented as a single entity, in accordance with the principles of the invention&#39;s shown, the edge server component shown in  FIG. 1  are represented as a single redundancy group  200  as they exhibit substantially the same properties or attributes. Similarly, the router components are represented as a single redundancy group  210  as they exhibit substantially the same properties or attributes. Similar redundancy groups may be formulated for the not shown load balancers and data bases network elements. 
       FIG. 2B  illustrates a second example of the formation of redundancy groups wherein the edge servers, shown in  FIG. 1 , are assigned to different redundancy group based, for example, on the additional similar property; geographic location. In this case, the location is a selected as a differentiating property that is not exhibited by each of the edge server component. Hence, in this second example, servers  120 . 3  and  120 . 4  are assigned to redundancy group  230  whereas servers  120 . 7  and  120 . 8  are assigned to redundancy group  250 . Additional differentiating properties may be selected from the group consisting of type of equipment, type of communication, level of application residing on the equipment, etc. Each of these factors may be used to create redundancy groups of common properties or attributes. 
       FIG. 3  illustrates an exemplary process for determining whether elements of a redundancy group. In this exemplary process, a type of content-based parameter is selected or identified is defined at block  310 . This type of content-based selection may represent all or a designated part of the information expected to be resident within the elements of a redundancy group. For example, the content-based selection may represent a line-by-line comparison of the expected content. In another aspect, the content-based selection may represent a specific image or textual item. For example, if the selected information or content is textual, then a line code, a block code, or a cyclical redundancy code (CRC) may be used to determine whether the stored textual information is as expected. Similar representation of images, e.g., static pictures, audio, video, or a combination of textual, static images and audio/video may also be made. 
     At block  320 , the content associated with the selected type of content is recorded as the master. At block  330 , a determination is made whether a redundancy group is available. If the answer is negative, then the exemplary processing shown is ended. 
     However, if the answer is in the affirmative, then a check is performed on each of the members of a selected redundancy group at block  340 . At bock  350 , content-based parameter values associated with each member of the redundancy group are collected. At block  360 , the collected content-based parameters values are subjected to an algorithm associated with the selected parameter. At block  370 , a determination is made whether any elements of the selected redundancy group fail to contain the expected content. If the answer is negative, then the exemplary process is completed. 
     However, if the answer is in the affirmative, then a notification is provided that at least one of the elements of the redundancy group is fails to contain the expected content and is not consistent with the other members of the redundancy group. 
       FIG. 4  illustrates an exemplary process  400  for performing content-based peer-to-peer comparison in accordance with the principles of the invention. In this exemplary process, a first member of the redundancy group is selected, at block  410 . At block  420 , a next/subsequent member of the redundancy group is selected. 
     At block  430 , a determination is made whether the selected content-based parameter of the first selected member is the comparable to a selected content-based parameter in the next/subsequent selected member of the redundancy group. 
     If the answer is in the negative then a notification is provided at block  440 . However, if the answer is in the affirmative, then, at block  460 , the selected content-based parameter of the first selected member of the redundancy group is replaced by the content-based parameter of the next/subsequent selected member and processing continues at block  420  to select a next/subsequent member of the redundancy group. 
     In one aspect of the invention, the comparisons between member of the redundancy group are performed once for each redundancy group member. In another aspect, the comparisons between members of the redundancy group are repeated until no differences in the selected content-based parameter are found among the redundancy group members. In still another aspect, and the one illustrated in  FIG. 4 , comparisons are continually repeated between the members of the redundancy group. 
       FIG. 5  illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a system  500  that may be used for implementing the principles of the present invention. System  500  may contain one or more input/output devices  502 , processors  503  and memories  504 . I/O devices  502  may access or receive information from one or more sources or devices  501 . Sources or devices  501  may be devices such as routers, servers, computers, notebook computer, PDAs, cells phones or other devices suitable for transmitting and receiving information responsive to the processes shown herein. Devices  501  may have access to device  510  over one or more network connections  550  via, for example, a wireless wide area network, a wireless metropolitan area network, a wireless local area network, a terrestrial broadcast system (Radio, TV), a satellite network, a cell phone or a wireless telephone network, or similar wired networks, such as POTS, Internet, LAN, WAN and/or private networks, e.g., Intranet, as well as portions or combinations of these and other types of networks. 
     Input/output devices  502 , processors  503  and memories  504  may communicate over a communication network  525 . Communication network  525  may represent, for example, a bus, a communication network, one or more internal connections of a circuit, circuit card or other apparatus, as well as portions and combinations of these and other communication media. Input data from the client devices  501  is processed in accordance with one or more programs that may be stored in memories  504  and executed by processors  503 . Memories  504  may be any magnetic, optical or semiconductor medium that is loadable and retains information either permanently, e.g. PROM, or non-permanently, e.g., RAM. Processors  503  may be any means, such as general purpose or special purpose computing system, such as a laptop computer, desktop computer, a server, handheld computer, or may be a hardware configuration, such as dedicated logic circuit, or integrated circuit. Processors  503  may also be Programmable Array Logic (PAL), or Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc., which may be “programmed” to include software instructions or code that provides a known output in response to known inputs. In one aspect, hardware circuitry may be used in place of, or in combination with, software instructions to implement the invention. The elements illustrated herein may also be implemented as discrete hardware elements that are operable to perform the operations shown using coded logical operations or by executing hardware executable code. 
     In one aspect, the processes shown herein may be represented by computer readable code stored on a computer readable medium. The code may also be stored in the memory  504 . The code may be read or downloaded from a memory medium  583 , an I/O device  585  or magnetic or optical media, such as a floppy disk, a CD-ROM or a DVD,  587  and then stored in memory  504 . In addition, the code may be transferred electronically over one or more networks, e.g.,  550 ,  580 , I/O device  585 , to memory  504 . The code may be either computer/processor dependent or computer/processor independent. JAVA is an example of computer/processor independent code. JAVA is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. 
     Information from device  501  received by I/O device  502 , after processing in accordance with one or more software programs operable to perform the functions illustrated herein, may also be transmitted over network  580  to one or more output devices represented as display  585 , reporting device  590  or second processing system  595 . 
     As one skilled in the art would recognize, the term computer or computer system may represent one or more processing units in communication with one or more memory units and other devices, e.g., peripherals, connected electronically to and communicating with the at least one processing unit. Furthermore, the devices may be electronically connected to the one or more processing units via internal busses, e.g., ISA bus, microchannel bus, PCI bus, PCMCIA bus, etc., or one or more internal connections of a circuit, circuit card or other device, as well as portions and combinations of these and other communication media or an external network, e.g., the Internet and Intranet. In addition, while networks  550  and  580  and communication network  525  are shown as distinct elements it would be recognized that these networks may be the same or different networks and may operate on the same or different communication principles or protocols. 
     While there has been shown, described, and pointed out fundamental novel features of the present invention as applied to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood that various omissions and substitutions and changes in the apparatus described, in the form and details of the devices disclosed, and in their operation, may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the present invention. 
     It is expressly intended that all combinations of those elements that perform substantially the same function in substantially the same way to achieve the same results are within the scope of the invention. Substitutions of elements from one described embodiment to another are also fully intended and contemplated.