Parallel I/O network file server architecture

Abstract

A file server architecture is disclosed, comprising as separate processors, a network controller unit, a file controller unit and a storage processor unit. These units incorporate their own processors, and operate in parallel with a local Unix host processor. All networks are connected to the network controller unit, which performs all protocol processing up through the NFS layer. The virtual file system is implemented in the file control unit, and the storage processor provides high-speed multiplexed access to an array of mass storage devices. The file controller unit control file information caching through its own local cache buffer, and controls disk data caching through a large system memory which is accessible on a bus by any of the processors.

Description

[0001] The present application is related to the following U.S. Patent Applications, all filed concurrently herewith.:[0002] 1. MULTIPLE FACILITY OPERATING SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE, invented by David Hitz, Allan Schwartz, James Lau and Guy Harris;[0003] 2. ENHANCED VMEBUS PROTOCOL UTILIZING PSEUDOSYNCHRONOUS HANDSHAKING AND BLOCK MODE DATA TRANSFER, invented by Daryl Starr; and[0004] 3. BUS LOCKING FIFO MULTI-PROCESSOR COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM UTILIZING PSEUDOSYNCHRONOUS HANDSHAKING AND BLOCK MODE DATA TRANSFER invented by Daryl D. Starr, William Pitts and Stephen Blightman.[0005] The above applications are all assigned to the assignee of the present invention and are all expressly incorporated herein by reference.[0006] 1. Field of the Invention[0007] The invention relates to computer data networks, and more particularly, to network file server architectures for computer networks.[0008] 2. Description of the Related Art[0009] Over the past ten years, remarkable increases in hardware price / ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

To date, however, network I / O limitations have constrained the potential performance available to workstation users.

Concurrently, these extremely fast clients have also gained an appetite for data that remote servers are unable to satisfy.

While simple and reliable, NFS is not optimal.

Clients using NFS place considerable demands upon both networks and NFS servers supplying clients with NFS data.

In addition to performance considerations, the low client-to-server ratio creates computing problems in several additional ways:

Development groups of more than 5-10 people cannot share the same server, and thus cannot easily share files without file replication and manual, multi-server updates.

Bridges or routers are a partial solution but inflict a performance penalty due to more network hops.

This burden includes network administration, hardware maintenance, and user account administration.

System administrators or operators must conduct multiple file system backups, which can be onerously time consuming tasks.

It is also expensive to duplicate backup peripherals on each server (or every few servers if slower network backup is used).

Conversion of a display-less workstation into a server may address disk capacity issues, but does nothing to address fundamental I / O limitations.

Adding larger disks, more network adaptors, extra primary memory, or even a faster processor do not resolve basic architectural I / O constraints; I / O throughput does not increase sufficiently.

This architecture is not optimal as a file server, however, at least because the two I / O processors cannot handle network file requests without involving the CPU.

One of the disadvantages of this computer architecture is that each CPU in the system runs its own complete operating system.

Additionally, the interprocessor communication is not optimized for file server type requests.

This architecture is disadvantageous as a file server because, among other things, both file data and the instructions for the CPUs reside in the same system memory.

This architecture is also disadvantageous as a file server because, among other things, each processor runs the entire operating system.

Interprocessor communication is also not optimal for file server applications.

But there is only one CPU on the card 10, so the processing of these requests is not accomplished in a truly parallel manner.

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