RDMA Object Pool Atomic Access via Autonomous Manager
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current RDMA technologies support only limited atomic operations like Fetch-and-add and Compare-and-swap, which are insufficient for implementing complex algorithms such as selecting the next integer from a pool, and require multiple round trips for operations like accessing a shared message queue, leading to inefficiencies in high-performance computing systems.
Innovation Solution
The extension of RDMA transport to enable atomic access to a generic object pool, allowing fully offloaded operations through network interface controllers without host processor involvement, supporting operations like atomic get, push, and queue management in FIFO or LIFO structures, ensuring atomicity even with multiple agents accessing the same data structure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If traditional RDMA atomic operations (Fetch-and-add, Compare-and-swap) are used, then data integrity is maintained, but operation complexity increases and performance decreases for complex algorithms
Solution Approach 1:
The object pool manager autonomously manages the object pool without requiring host processor involvement. It handles allocation, deallocation, and atomic operations independently, allowing RDMA operations to be performed directly on the object pool with full atomicity guarantees, thereby simplifying algorithms and improving performance
2Productivity
If multiple round trips are used for shared message queue access, then data integrity is ensured, but communication overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the queue management functionality directly into the object pool, allowing shared message queue operations to be performed as single atomic operations on the object pool. This eliminates the need for multiple separate round trips while maintaining data integrity through the object pool manager's atomic access control
3Productivity
If host processor involvement is required for object pool access, then operation flexibility is maintained, but system performance decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the object pool management functionality from the host processor and implements it as a separate, autonomous object pool manager. This allows object pool operations to be performed independently by the manager with full atomicity support, enabling complete offloading of these operations from the host processor and significantly improving processing throughput
Data Source
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AI summary
In a fabric of network elements one network element has an object pool (60) to be accessed stored in its memory. A request for atomic access to the object pool (60) by another network element is carried out by transmitting the request through the fabric to the one network element, performing a remote direct memory access to a designated member of the object pool (60), atomically executing the request, and returning a result of the execution of the request through the fabric to the other network element.