Virtual Port Abstraction for Transmit Load Balancing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing communication systems fail to effectively implement transmit load balancing across network interface cards (NICs) with differing bandwidth capabilities or connectivity, leading to inefficient distribution of message packets and underutilization of ports with diminished capabilities.
Innovation Solution
The system introduces virtual ports that abstract physical ports, allowing load balancing decisions to be made based on relative connectivity and bandwidth, adjusting the number of virtual ports dynamically based on Spanning Tree cost information to optimize message packet distribution across physical ports.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If ports with differing bandwidth capabilities are teamed, then fault tolerance is improved, but transmit load balancing cannot be effectively implemented
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the physical ports into multiple virtual ports, where each physical port is divided into multiple virtual ports with equal bandwidth. This segmentation allows the load balancer to distribute packets across virtual ports without being constrained by the underlying physical ports' differing bandwidth capabilities, thereby enabling effective load balancing while maintaining fault tolerance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces virtual ports as an intermediary layer between the physical ports and the load balancer. The virtual ports abstract the physical port differences and present a uniform interface to the load balancer, allowing load balancing decisions to be made without knowledge of the underlying physical port capabilities while still mapping to appropriate physical ports for transmission.
2Reliability
If ports with differing connectivity to the network are used, then redundancy is improved, but load distribution becomes inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments each physical port into multiple virtual ports, allowing the load balancer to distribute message packets across multiple virtual ports that map to different physical ports with different network connectivity. This segmentation enables efficient load distribution while maintaining redundancy through the underlying physical port connections.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a virtual port dimension that separates the load balancing decision space from the physical port connectivity space. By operating in the virtual port dimension, the load balancer can make distribution decisions based on packet characteristics rather than physical port capabilities, improving efficiency while physical ports maintain their redundancy function.
3Device complexity
If all ports are treated equally in load balancing, then simplicity is maintained, but throughput is not maximized
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments physical ports into virtual ports with equal bandwidth, creating a simplified virtual port space where uniform load balancing algorithms can operate. This segmentation maintains simplicity in the load balancing configuration while enabling better throughput by allowing multiple virtual ports to share the load efficiently across physical ports with different capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates virtual ports as copies or abstractions of physical ports. These virtual ports have uniform properties that simplify load balancing decisions, while the mapping from virtual to physical ports handles the complexity of differing physical capabilities, thereby maintaining simplicity without sacrificing throughput optimization.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system of transmit load balancing across multiple physical ports. At least some of the illustrative embodiments are methods comprising teaming a first and second communication ports to create a teamed communication port, creating a plurality of virtual ports which abstract the first and second communication ports (and wherein a number of virtual ports utilizing each communication port is based on parameters associated with the communication ports), selecting one of the plurality of virtual ports out which to send a message packet thus designating a select virtual port (the selecting implements transmit load balancing across plurality of virtual ports) and sending the message packets out the first or second communication port utilized by the selected virtual port.