62 results about "System area network" patented technology

A fiber channel storage area network (SAN) provides virtualized storage space for a number of servers to a number of virtual disks implemented on various virtual redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) devices striped across a plurality of physical disk drives. The SAN includes plural controllers and communication paths to allow for fail-safe and fail-over operation. The plural controllers can be loosely-coupled to provide n-way redundancy and have more than one independent channel for communicating with one another. In particular, respective portions from each of the back-end physical disk drives within the SAN are used as one of these alternative communication channels to pass messages between controllers. Such an alternative communications channel provides even further redundancy and robustness in the system.

A virtual machine operating system for communication between first and second applications which execute in different user portions of the virtual machine operating system and use Internet Protocol (IP). The virtual machine operating system comprises a first user portion, a second user portion and a base portion. The first user portion executes the first application and includes a first device driver for a first virtual network interface card (NIC). The second user portion executes the second application and includes a second device driver for a second virtual NIC. The base portion is shared by the first and second user portions and includes the first and second virtual NICs. The base portion maintains a table of IP addresses by which each device driver addresses its respective NIC and other, corresponding addresses by which the base portion addresses the virtual NIC. The first device driver is programmed to receive an IP datagram from the first application and pass it to the first NIC using IP. The datagram includes an IP address of the second virtual NIC and an indication that the second application should receive the datagram. The base portion is programmed to determine the other address of the second NIC based on the table and transfer the datagram to a storage location associated with the second virtual NIC or the second device driver.

A method, computer program product, and data processing system for providing system-area network (SAN) multicasting functionality in a logically partitioned (LPAR) data processing system in which a channel adapter is shared among a plurality of logical partitions is disclosed. A preferred embodiment of the present invention allows LPAR “hypervisor” firmware to assume the responsibility for multicast protocol handling and distribution of packets among logical partitions.

The present invention provides an apparatus, system and method for providing a generalized queue pair for use with host channel adapters of a system area network. With the apparatus, system and method, the hypervisor of a host channel adapter maintains a P_Key table for each logical port of the host channel adapter. When a request is received to allocate a queue pair from a requestor application associated with a logical port, a P_Key mode is set in a control register associated with the queue pair based on the type of requestor application that sent the request. Based on this P_Key mode, one or more P_Keys from a P_Key table associated with the logical port from which the request was received are written to one or more P_Key registers allocated to the queue pair. These P_Keys are then used to perform P_Key checks of incoming data packets. In addition, these P_Keys are inserted into headers of outgoing data packets. In a preferred embodiment, the P_Key modes may be a single P_Key check mode, a multiple P_Key check mode, and a P_Key check disabled mode.

Techniques for creation, operation, management, and access control of network-based storage services are described. Specific embodiments provide improved efficiency of the service management tasks used for designing, operating and accounting the robust and profitable network services, for example. In representative embodiments, techniques for constructing integrated network and storage services are provided. In a specific embodiment, the service comprises of three major service components: virtual private networks (VPN), applications servers and storage area networks (SAN). Each of these service components has its own customer identification information, such as VPN identifier for VPN services, process identifier for application servers and logical unit number (LUN) for storage devices.

A method in a network computing system for managing configuration information for a set of components in a network computing system. The configuration information is stored for the set of components in the network computing system to form stored configuration information. In the depicted examples, the components may be nodes or devices within nodes. Current configuration is obtained in response to a power cycle. The current configuration information is compared with the stored configuration information to form a comparison. The stored configuration information is updated if a difference is present in the comparison. The stored configuration information is used to configure the components when a power cycle occurs.

A method and system are provided for dynamically informing an operating system (OS) of a distributed computer system, when a (new) device is added on the network. An OS registers with the subnet administrator (SA) to be notified when a new component is added to the subnet and placed in a partition to which the OS has access. The subnet manager (SM) initializes and configures the new component that is added and, through the partition manager, associates the component to one or more partitions of the subnet. The SA then notifies the OSs with access to the partition(s) to which the component is associated and that have a right to access the new component that the new component is available to the OS. Following, the OS updates a database of available components to include the new component and establishes communication with the new component.

A method, system, and product in a data processing system are disclosed for providing centralized management of a InfiniBand distributed system-area network that includes multiple end nodes. A manager application is established in one of the end nodes. An agent application is established in one or more end nodes. Each agent application is independent from the manager application. The manager application maintains a current list of active agent applications and uses the list to manage the agent applications in the end nodes.

A computer implemented method processes STREAMS messages over an Infiniband system area network. STREAMS messages received at a STREAMS over Infiniband module from a STREAMS based application are encapsulated in Infiniband verbs to create an encapsulated STREAMS message. A STREAMS identifier header is appended onto the Infiniband verb. The STREAMS over Infiniband module forwards the encapsulated STREAMS message to a streams interface layer where the encapsulated STREAMS message is then forwarded to a host channel adapter of the Infiniband system area network.

A method and apparatus for providing remote access redirect in a host channel adapter of a system area network are provided. The apparatus and method provide a mechanism by which a host channel adapter, in response to receiving a marker message, places selected channel(s) of the host channel adapter in a remote access redirect (RAR) mode of operation. During the RAR mode of operation, memory access messages received by the host channel adapter that are destined for portions of an application memory space marked as being protected are converted to RAR receive messages and redirected to a queue pair associated with an operating system rather than the queue pair for the application. The operating system is responsible for serializing access to application memory pages outside of the host channel adapter. The mechanisms of the present invention may be used to perform a checkpoint data integrity operation.

In remote copy systems connected with a dedicated interface, reliability is reduced for the time until the disk system that caused an error will be recovered. Therefore, when an error occurs in a primary disk system, it is replaced with a standby disk system connected to a storage area network. As a result, a remote copy system with high reliability is obtained.

A network of data processors for providing access to a resource, such as implemented a Storage Area Network that uses iSCSI and Microsoft MPIO-based network communication protocols. In preferred embodiments, the system or method uses (a) target-side consideration of MPIO disk structures, such as by having iSCSI initiators in from iSCSI targets via an iSCSI session object that is settable by a service action; and/or (b) uploading of routing tables from iSCSI targets to iSCSI initiator(s), such as to a Device Specific Module (DSM). Implementations may also involve, in a preferred embodiment: (1) requesting that the contents of the routing table be provided from the iSCSI target side storage servers to the iSCSI initiators, and using this as one of the factors influencing path selection as performed in the MPIO DSM on the initiator side; and/or (2) transmitting information from the iSCSI initiator to the iSCSI target storage server identifying connections as belonging to the same MPIO disk, and then receiving back from the iSCSI target storage server, information about the connections that should be created, and further then having a connection load balancer on the storage server handle those connections as related connections that need to be assigned each to a different Network Interface (NIC) on the storage servers.

A system and method for collective send operations on a system area network are provided. The mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments provide for the creation, modification, and removal of collective send queues (CSQs) that allow the upper level protocol (ULP) used by a consumer to send the same message to a collective set of queue pairs (QPs). In order to use the transport services of a CSQ, a consumer process posts a write work request (WR) to the CSQ. The write WR causes a write work queue element (WQE) to be generated and placed in the CSQ. A channel interface (CI) is provided that effectively copies the write WQE to all of the send queues (SQs) of the QPs in the QP set associated with the CSQ. When all the QPs complete processing of their respective write WQEs, the HCA releases all data segments referenced by the write WR.

A storage switch in accordance with an embodiment of the invention is a highly scalable switch that allows the creation of a SAN that is easy to deploy and that can be centrally managed. Moreover, such a storage switch also allows the deployment of a global infrastructure, allowing the resources of the SAN, such as storage devices, to essentially be positioned anywhere on the globe. Further, such a storage switch allows a multi-protocol SAN, e.g., one that includes both iSCSI or Fibre Channel, and processes data packets at “wire speed.” To further enable wire-speed processing, a switch in accordance with the invention has “intelligence” distributed to each of its linecards, through which it classifies packets into data and control packets, it performs virtualization functions, and it performs protocol translation functions. A switch in accordance with the invention further performs serverless storage services such as mirroring, snapshot, and replication.

A shared I/O subsystem that includes a plurality of I/O interfaces for coupling a plurality of computer systems where each of I/O interfaces communicatively couples one of the computer systems to the shared I/O subsystem. The shared I/O subsystem receives, at a first one of the I/O interfaces, a data packet from one of the computer systems coupled to the first one of the I/O interfaces where the data packet has a variable length, arranges, at the first one of the I/O interfaces, the data packet into an internal format where the internal format has a first portion that includes data bits and a second portion that includes control bits, receives the data packet in a buffer in the shared I/O subsystem where the second portion is received after the first portion, verifies, with the shared I/O subsystem, that the data packet has been completely received by the buffer by monitoring a memory bit aligned with a final bit in the second portion of the data packet, and transmits, in response to the verifying, the data packet to another one of the computer systems coupled to a second one of the I/O interfaces.

A computer network controller, preferably operative in a System Area Network (SAN), is described. In a SAN, such a network controller is implemented as a SAN Protocol Engine (SPE) for use in Host Channel Adapters (HCA) and Target Channel Adapters (TCA). The SPE is based on a programmable Multi-Context Micro Sequencer (MCMS) tightly coupled to a fully associative multi-context block (FACB), running dedicated instructions optimized for network protocols. Associated with the MCMS is a Data Buffer with a number of read and write ports. This enables the SPE to run different tasks in parallel. Attached to the MCMS is a link-dependent Packet Sender and Outbound Scheduler hereby called Network Protocol Engine (NPE). The SPE is capable of running multiple user-level RMDAs with implicit completion control.

A technique enables efficient access to logical unit numbers (luns) or virtual disks (vdisks) stored on a storage system, such as a multi-protocol storage appliance. The technique allows a grouping of initiators by a “human friendly” logical name that is mapped to a lun or vdisk on the storage appliance. The initiators are clients operating in, e.g., a storage area network (SAN) environment that initiate requests for the vdisk using block-based access protocols, such as the Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) protocol encapsulated over TCP/IP (iSCSI) or over fibre channel (FCP). The technique enables access to the vdisk by all initiators that are members of the initiator group (igroup). An igroup is a logical named entity that is assigned to one or more addresses associated with one or more initiators. These addresses may comprise fibre channel (FC) world wide name (WWN) or iSCSI name identifiers (IDs). Therefore, rather than having to specify these IDs when desiring access to a vdisk, an initiator need only specify the human friendly name of the igroup.

An effective I/O protocol for taking advantage of system area network functionality, whether or not a particular application is written to do so, is provided. Transparently to the application, the I/O protocol routes application I/O commands via legacy transmission protocols or via remote direct memory access protocols as appropriate. When communicating via remote direct memory access protocols, the I/O protocol can take advantage of multiple data exchange commands implemented by these protocols to perform the required data exchange. Once an I/O operation has completed, the I/O protocol passes a completion notification to the application using a polling or interrupt construct.

A server hosting system including a server cluster and a plurality of dispatchers, the plurality of dispatchers providing multiple points of entry into the server cluster. The server cluster and plurality of dispatchers are interconnected by a network, such as a system area network. Each of the dispatchers maintains a local dispatch table, and the local dispatch tables of the plurality of dispatchers, respectively, share data over the network.