Lookup discovery service in a distributed system having a plurality of lookup services each with associated characteristics and services

摘要

A lookup discovery service is provided that continuously monitors associated lookup services and provides information on lookup services of interest to registered clients. This lookup discovery service is a third party server that can be used by a client to perform the client's discovery duties. Thus, if a lookup service does not provide access to a particular network service of interest inside of the client's multicast radius, the client can query a lookup discovery service to identify qualified lookup services anywhere on the enterprise. Additionally, the lookup discovery service provides an event mechanism with notification semantics that allows the client to be notified of the arrival of new lookup services of interest as well as certain changes in the state of the current lookup services (discarded, rediscovered, etc.) on the network.