1. A distributed energy generation and storage system relying upon electric automobile batteries outside of at least one automobile for storing electric power and supplying the stored electric power to an end user being house or to an electric utility grid when connected to the load, said distributed energy generation and storage system comprising:
a) plurality of said electric automobile batteries;
b) at least one cluster formed by a connection of at least two cells, each of the at least two cells selectively providing electric power to said end user, wherein each of the at least two cells comprises:
i) a rechargeable battery assembly, said assembly comprising a plurality of connected said electric automobile batteries formed by a plurality of groups of said electric automobile batteries, each of said groups having an output terminal voltage, each of said groups having an optimal number of said electric automobile batteries to minimize the loss of battery potential when in storage mode;
ii) a bi-directional inverter connected to the rechargeable battery assembly, said a bi-directional inverter for inverting a first AC voltage from said electric utility grid to a first DC voltage to the rechargeable battery assembly, and for inverting a second DC voltage from the rechargeable battery assembly to a second AC voltage for delivery to said at least one end user;
c) an automated control device configured to receive at least one time setting input for energy management;
d) a timer connected to the automated control device for providing timing information for energy management to the automated control device; and
e) a switch control operably connected to the automated control device, to an inverter, to an electric utility grid, to a power charging supply, and to the end user, wherein the switch control is configured to:
i) selectively switch between the electric utility grid and the battery assembly of the cell as the primary electric power supply to the end user according to the timing information;
ii) selectively switch the battery assembly between a battery assembly use mode and a battery assembly storage mode; and
iii) selectively switch the cell to connect to an outside power charging supply when in the storage mode.
2. The electric power retention distribution cell according to claim 1, wherein the inverter is configured to convert an AC electric grid power to a DC power and output the DC power to the battery assembly.
3. A battery assembly with an output voltage comprising electric mobile batteries outside of at least one automobile for storing electric power and supplying the stored electric power to a house or to an electric utility grid when connected to a load, said batteries assembly comprising:
a) a plurality of said electric automobile batteries;
b) a plurality of connected said batteries formed by a plurality of groups of electric automobile batteries, said groups formed by a series connection of said electric automobile batteries and each said group comprising at least one series and at least one parallel electric automobile battery connection, each of said groups having an output terminal voltage, each of said groups having an optimal number of said electric automobile batteries to minimize the loss of battery potential when in storage mode, each of said groups formed by a series connection of said electric automobile batteries;
c) at least one switch connected between at least one of the groups of said electric automobile batteries and other said electric automobile batteries in the battery assembly; and
d) a bi-directional inverter for inverting a first AC voltage from said electric utility grid to a first DC voltage to the rechargeable battery assembly, and for inverting a second DC voltage from the rechargeable battery assembly to a second AC voltage for delivery to at least one end user;
such that the at least one switch disconnects the at least one of the battery groups of batteries when the electric power of the electric automobile batteries assembly is in storage, and connects the at least one of the groups of the electric automobile batteries when the electric power of the battery assembly is either connected to the load, wherein the output voltage of the battery assembly when connected to the load is greater than the terminal voltage of the at least one group of said electric automobile batteries when in storage.
4. The battery assembly of claim 3, wherein the battery assembly is operatively connectable to an outside power supply source for charging the battery assembly and the at least one switch is adapted to be closed to connect the groups of electric automobile batteries together when the electric automobile batteries of the battery assembly are being charged from the outside power supply source.
5. The battery assembly of claim 3, wherein the battery assembly is operatively connectable to an inverter for converting a direct current voltage of the battery assembly to an alternating current voltage when the battery assembly is operatively connected to the load.
6. The battery assembly of claim 3, wherein the at least one switch is controlled by a computer.
7. The battery assembly of claim 3, wherein the load is at least one end user of the electric power from the battery assembly.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
What is claimed is:
1. A Fibre Channel (FC) fabric that comprises:
a first FC switch configured to directly couple with at least one FC node device, wherein the first FC switch executes a name server that maintains a first database of information about FC node devices directly coupled to the first FC switch; and
a second FC switch coupled to the first FC switch and configured to directly couple with at least one FC node device, wherein the second FC switch executes a name server that maintains a second database of information about FC node devices directly coupled to the second FC switch,
wherein second FC switch further executes a cache manager that maintains a third database of information about FC node devices directly coupled to the first FC switch.
2. The fabric of claim 1, wherein the first FC switch further executes a cache manager that maintains a database of information about FC node devices directly coupled to the second FC switch.
3. The fabric of claim 1, wherein the name server executed by the first FC switch is configured to notify all other switches in the fabric of detected changes to FC node devices directly coupled to the first switch.
4. The fabric of claim 1, wherein the name server executed by the second FC switch is configured to notify the cache manager and all other switches in the fabric of detected changes to FC node devices directly coupled to the second switch.
5. The fabric of claim 4, wherein the cache manager is configured to receive notifications of detected changes from other switches and to update the third database accordingly.
6. The fabric of claim 5, wherein the cache manager is further configured to receive notifications of detected changes from the name server executed by the second switch.
7. The fabric of claim 6, wherein the cache manager is further configured to generate notification messages for FC node devices directly connected to the second FC switch, and wherein the notification messages include information from multiple notifications received by the cache manager.
8. The fabric of claim 6, wherein the cache manager is further configured to generate notification messages for FC node devices directly connected to the second FC switch, and wherein the notification messages represent all notifications received by the cache manager within a predetermined time interval.
9. The fabric of claim 6, wherein the cache manager is further configured to generate notification messages for FC node devices directly connected to the second FC switch, and wherein the notification messages include information from a predetermined number of notifications received by the cache manager, wherein said predetermined number is greater than one.
10. A network that comprises:
multiple switches coupled together; and
multiple node devices, each directly coupled to at least one switch,
wherein each one of the multiple switches has a name server component configured to respond to requests for information about node devices, and a cache manager component configured to maintain a cache of information about all node devices in the network that are not directly coupled to said one of the multiple switches.
11. The network of claim 10, wherein the cache comprises device entries that include information regarding only a predetermined subset of node device properties.
12. The network of claim 11, wherein the name server component maintains a local database of information about all node devices directly coupled to said one of the multiple switches, and wherein the local database comprises device entries that include information regarding a complete set of node device properties.
13. The network of claim 10, wherein the cache manager component receives information regarding a given node device each time a state change notification is issued for the given node device.
14. The network of claim 13, wherein the cache manager component notifies one or more node devices directly coupled to said one of the multiple switches after receiving information indicating a state change to a node device that shares a common zone membership with the one or more node devices.
15. The network of claim 14, wherein the cache manager component includes information about multiple node devices in notification messages to directly-coupled node devices.
16. A switch that comprises:
a name server component configured to respond to name server requests for information about node devices, and further configured to generate notification messages about changes to local node devices;
a name server cache manager component configured to maintain a cache of node device entries that includes a node device entry for each node device that is directly coupled to any other switch in a network, wherein the name server component accesses the cache to respond to name server requests for information about node devices not directly coupled to the switch.
17. The switch of claim 16, wherein the name server component maintains a local database of node device entries that includes a node device entry for each node device that is directly coupled to the switch.
18. The switch of claim 17, wherein the node device entries in the cache include information regarding only a subset of device properties described in node entries of the local database.
19. The switch of claim 16, wherein the cache manager component receives information regarding a given node device each time a state change notification is issued for the given node device.
20. The switch of claim 19, wherein the cache manager component notifies one or more node devices directly coupled to the switch after receiving information regarding a state change to a node device that shares a common zone membership with the one or more node devices.
21. The switch of claim 20, wherein the cache manager component provides information about multiple node devices in notification messages to the directly-coupled node devices.
22. A method of providing information about node devices in a network, the method comprising:
receiving add messages and delete messages from local node devices;
using the add messages and delete messages to establish and maintain a database of local node device entries;
receiving state change notification messages from other switches;
using the state change notification messages to establish and maintain a cache of remote node device entries;
receiving a node device information request;
generating a response from the database of local node entries if the node device information request regards a local node device; and
generating a response from the cache of remote node device entries if the node device information request regards a remote node device.
23. The method of claim 22, wherein the local node entries describe a predetermined set of node device properties, and wherein the remote node entries describe a subset of the predetermined set.
24. The method of claim 22, further comprising:
generating a registered state change notifications for local devices after receiving a
registered state change notification from another switch.
25. The method of claim 24, wherein the registered state change notification for a local device includes information from multiple registered state change notifications from other switches.