| 摘要 |
A network and method for servicing simultaneously pending boot image download requests in a multi-client, networked environment. A boot image server on the network is configured to satisfy boot image sessions initiated by one or more client systems on the network. The image server is configured to prioritize requests from different clients to minimize or reduce the network's average download time, which represents the amount of time required to boot a theoretical average client. In one embodiment, the image server is configured to minimize the average download time by prioritizing client requests according to the amount of time required to complete a each client's download such that requests from clients with short remaining download times are given higher priority and, conversely, request from clients with long remaining download times are given lower priority. The amount of download time remaining is estimated by maintaining a log the response time (round trip delay) of recently transmitted packets for each client. In one embodiment, a rolling average of recent response times is used to provide an estimate of the client's overall response time. The image server also tracks the size of the image file remaining to be downloaded for each client. Using these two parameters, the image server estimates the remaining time to download the image file and prioritizes the processing of outstanding packet requests based thereon.
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