Network interface adapter with shared data send resources

Abstract

A network interface adapter includes an outgoing packet generator, adapted to generate an outgoing request packet for delivery to a remote responder responsive to a request submitted by a host processor and a network output port, coupled to transmit the outgoing request packet over a network to the remote responder. A network input port receives an incoming response packet from the remote responder, in response to the outgoing request packet sent thereto, as well as an incoming request packet sent by a remote requester. An incoming packet processor receives and processes both the incoming response packet and the incoming request packet, and causes the outgoing packet generator, responsive to the incoming request packet, to generate, in addition to the outgoing request packet, an outgoing response packet for transmission to the remote requester.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application is a Divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 000,456 filed Dec. 4, 2001, which claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60,238,018 filed Apr. 11, 2001.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates generally to digital network communications, and specifically to remote direct memory access (RDMA) to data over a digital network. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] The computer industry is moving toward fast, packetized, serial input / output (I / O) bus architectures, in which computing hosts and peripherals are linked by a switching network, commonly referred to as a switching fabric. A number of architectures of this type have been proposed, culminating in the “InfiniBand™” (IB) architecture, which has been advanced by a consortium led by a group of industry leaders (including Intel, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Compaq, Dell and Microsoft). The IB architecture is described in detai...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides improved devices and methods for interfacing a host processor to a network, particularly by providing an improved HCA. The invention simplifies the hardware requirements of the HCA by sharing scatter and gather engines between the requester and responder functions. The invention also allows for a larger number of outstanding RDMA read requests from remote requesters and provides a more efficient and dynamic allocation of resources. The invention can be applied to network interface adapters of various types, such as IB switch fabrics, TCAs, and network interface adapters for packet networks. The invention further includes an outgoing packet generator and an incoming packet processor for processing the outgoing and incoming response packets, respectively. The gather engine is adapted to read information from the descriptors and gather the read and write data responsively. Overall, the invention improves the efficiency and flexibility of the HCA in interfacing a host processor to a network.

Problems solved by technology

The need for this restriction stems from the fact that each outstanding RDMA read request consumes a certain amount of memory on the HCA chip.

Because of the high cost of this HCA memory, IB devices known in the art typically allow no more than one or a few outstanding read requests per QP.

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