PCI Device Manager for Driver-Free P2P Data Transfer
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing P2P communication solutions for PCI devices require customization of host drivers, occupy memory resources, and lack universality, leading to inefficiencies in CPU and memory usage.
Innovation Solution
A PCI device manager with a DMA engine and memory mapping module facilitates direct communication between PCI devices, bypassing host CPU and memory by using device memory and CPU for data transmission, and supports P2P communication without modifying host drivers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If existing P2P solutions use NVMe over Fabric with customized drivers, then CPU overhead is reduced, but driver complexity and lack of universality increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a network interface controller as an intermediary device that includes a P2P communication module. This module acts as a mediator between storage devices and other PCI devices, enabling direct communication without requiring customization of host drivers. The intermediary handles the P2P communication protocol and device coordination, thus reducing CPU overhead while maintaining driver universality.
Solution Approach 2:
The network interface controller is designed with multi-functionality, supporting both traditional network communication and P2P direct communication between PCI devices. By integrating the P2P communication module into the network interface controller, the system achieves universality where a single device can handle multiple communication modes without requiring separate customized drivers for each function.
2Speed
If P2P communication uses host memory resources, then data transmission path is shortened, but memory resource occupation increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the data transmission path from the host memory system by enabling direct communication between PCI devices through the P2P communication module in the network interface controller. Data can be transmitted directly between devices without being written to or read from host memory, thus shortening the transmission path while eliminating occupation of host memory resources.
3Reliability
If host CPU participates in P2P communication coordination, then device communication is managed, but CPU resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The P2P communication module in the network interface controller is designed to autonomously manage communication between PCI devices without requiring host CPU participation. The module can independently coordinate data transmission, handle device discovery, and manage communication protocols, thus ensuring reliable device communication management while eliminating CPU resource consumption for these tasks.
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure relates to a computing system, a PCI device manager and an initialization method thereof. The PCI device manager is used to realize peer-to-peer data transmission between PCI devices, and the PCI device manager includes: a DMA engine module that realizes data and command communication with a host and a PCI device through DMA; a device memory; a memory mapping module that maps a data cache space of the device memory to a physical address space of the host memory, so as to perform data communication and/or command communication with the PCI device via the DMA engine module in a running process; and a processor that sends a PCI device configuration instruction to the host through the DMA engine module, and creates PCI device objects respectively for PCI devices discovered by the host.