METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR HIERARCHICAL SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION PACKAGES

摘要

A software distribution system for software bundles comprising a plurality of packages, at least two of which are required by a different set of nodes on a network. Rather than send all of the packages constituting the software bundle to each node, only the packages in the software bundle which are required by nodes below a certain link in the network are sent along that link, whereby to minimize the bandwidth required for transmitting the software bundle.