(computer) after being powered on. Thus the NC system could not only stay low-cost but also better support client requests, especially requests for multi-media applications. We termed this solution the MMNC (Manageable Multi-media Network Computer), which is a type of NC system based on the Transparence Computing paradigm. One version of the serial ‘Longxin’ Network Computers, which are being developed by our Network System Group of DCST, Tsinghua University, is based on one prototype of MMNC.
In view of existing computer systems' (legacy NC, Thin Client etc.) limitations, including over-dependency on servers, limited support of multimedia application, software upgrade difficulties, poor management, and poor server load capability, the present invention provides a type of Network Computer system based on Transparence Computing, termed the MMNC system.
This computing system is based on Transparence Computing. It consists of NC clients and a server connected by computer networks that support broadcasting. The mainboard of the client has components as follows: a low power-consumption CPU, host bridge, south bridge, main memory, BIOS, PCI BUS, NIC, and other peripheral adapters; there is no disk and no preinstalled OS on the client; a remote booting chip is set on the client's mainboard which stores codes of the remote booting protocol for remotely downloading and loading OS codes; services like the NFS service, the PXE service, the DHCP service, the TFTP service, the SAMBA service, and varied OS kernel mirrors, applications, documents and data are preset on the server. The system operates orderly according to the following steps to fulfill users' computing requirements: 1) power on and initiation of the local environment and networking; 2) the client detects the remote booting chip under the CPU's control, then starts the booting procedure on the network; 3) the remote booting codes stored in the remote booting chip are executed and the client broadcasts the boot request to the network; 4) after receiving the client's boot request, the server sends a response to the client, which contains allocated network parameters for it; 5) the client sends a download request to the server for the OS-selecting script; 6) the server sends its OS-selecting script to the client, which contains varied OS options for which it can provide the corresponding mirrors; 7) the client executes the received OS-selecting script, and the users make their selection; 8) the client sends the download request to the server for the mirror of the selected OS kernel; 9) the server sends the mirror of the selected OS kernel to the client; 10) the client receives and loads the mirror of the selected OS kernel; 11) hereafter, the client fulfills any user's computing requirement like a normal PC, the computing work is implemented on the client locally, and according to the application requirements the client acquires corresponding resources such as application programs, data, and documents from the server during running. Optionally, using existing techniques, within the said OS kernel mirror, a client daemon service can be preset for creating virtual disks on the server across the network, and a corresponding server daemon service is run on the server, therefore providing the client with private storage space. Additionally, within the said OS kernel mirror, a daemon service can be preset for creating virtual disks in the client's memory, and data generated during or after the computing process on the client can be temporarily stored into its memory.
The MMNC system adopts the Transparence Computing paradigm, alleviating the traditional NC system's over-dependence on servers, the limited support of multi-media application, and difficulties of software upgrading and management.
The invention also provides the cooperative booting method of the MMNC clients and the self-organizing method of the server clusters, which make the MMNC system gain better performance, higher availability, and linear-like scalability
For a more complete understanding of the present inventi