Francis J Stanbach

20020010794, Jan 24, 2002

Aug 6, 1999

09/369770

FRANCIS J. STANBACH JR. - MENLO PARK CA, US
DANIEL G. HOFFMAN - LOS GATOS CA, US
BRUCE R. KEISER - LOS GATOS CA, US

G06F015/16

709/245000

A method and apparatus for providing network hosting services is provided. According to one aspect of the invention, a multi-threaded name server handles multiple concurrent name requests, and is particularly well suited for a host system controlling information relating to a large number of domain names. In a preferred embodiment as described herein, a multi-threaded name server comprises a request dispatcher thread capable of spawning multiple child threads. The result is a multi-threaded, non-blocking name server capable of handling multiple concurrent name requests for a large number of domain names. In one embodiment, one or more additional network services are also provided, preferably using a centralized database. For example, in a particular embodiment, electronic message forwarding services are provided wherein an advertisement is associated with an electronic message based on the message contents. In another embodiment, web services are provided wherein hypertext markup language (HTML) pages are dynamically generated. In still another embodiment, both electronic message forwarding services and web services are provided on by the same system using the centralized database.

20010049747, Dec 6, 2001

Aug 6, 1999

09/369647

FRANCIS J. STANBACH - MENLO PARK CA, US

NAMEZERO.COM, INC.

G06F015/16

709/245000

A method and apparatus for mapping between a host name and a host address is provided. According to one aspect of the invention, a multi-threaded name server handles multiple concurrent name requests, and is particularly well suited for a host system controlling information relating to a large number of domain names. In a preferred embodiment as described herein, a multi-threaded name server comprises a request dispatcher thread capable of spawning multiple child threads. For each name request received by the request dispatcher thread, the request dispatcher spawns a child thread to handle the request. The child threads query a host name hash table to determine whether the host name hash table comprises a host name matching a host name in the name request. The result is a multi-threaded, non-blocking name server capable of handling multiple concurrent name requests for a large number of domain names. According to a particular embodiment, the multi-threaded name server further comprises a database coherency thread. The database coherency thread continuously or regularly queries a database comprising information corresponding to a plurality of domain names. When information in the database changes, the database coherency thread updates the host name cache to reflect any changes.