Patent ID: 8688827

Claim:
A method, implemented at least in part by a computing device, for providing a scalable and elastic two-level overlay computer network, comprising: providing a host network, wherein the host network includes a system of interconnected computers and is operable to support one or more transport layer protocols; generating a first overlay network, wherein: the first overlay network includes one or more first-level nodal entities and one or more dispatch controllers, the first-level nodal entities are background programs running within the operating system on a physical machine or on a virtual machine platform in the host network, and the first-level nodal entities are operable to generate second-level nodal entities in a second overlay network; in response to a first-level nodal entity receiving an instruction from a dispatch controller, generating, by one or more first-level nodal entities, the second overlay network, wherein: the second overlay network includes a plurality of networked second-level nodal entities forming a circuit network, the second-level nodal entities are dynamically spawned and run as threads by the first-level nodal entities, the second-level nodal entities are transferable between the first-level nodal entities, and the second overlay network is operable to support high-bandwidth data processing and data communication between the second-level nodal entities in the circuit network, distributing data originating at a second-level nodal entity to a designated set of second-level nodal entities in the second overlay network, wherein the designated set of second-level nodal entities is disjoint from other second-level entities in the second overlay network; and connecting entities in the designated set of second-level nodal entities to form a graph, wherein the second-level nodal entities in the designated set of second-level nodal entities constitute vertices of the graph and wherein connections between the second-level nodal entities constitute links of the graph.