Patent ID: 7296050

Claim:
A distributed computing method for a computer system having a current system context associated with a local user of said computer system and a distributed computing system context, the computer system having a power management system for saving and restoring the current system context and for placing the computer system in at least a first power saving state of a plurality of power management states, and an access controller for providing access to a nonvolatile storage resource for storing and retrieving the current system context and for accessing said distributed computing system context, the method comprising the steps of outputting data representing said current system context of the computer system for storage on the non-volatile storage resource prior to being placed in said first power management state, said current system context becoming a saved system context associated with said local user; upon receiving a network wake up event, receiving data representing said distributed computing system context for the computer system, said distributed computing system context being different to the saved system context; establishing the distributed computing system context within the computer system; processing distributed computing task data based on the distributed computing system context, the distributed computing context becoming a current distributed computing context as it changes; and switching from the current distributed computing system context back to the saved system context in response to a user request inputted by said local user at said computer system.