System and method for supporting on-demand setup of local host channel adapter port partition membership in a high-performance computing environment

A system for dynamically assigning membership in a partition, comprising:

• a computer comprising one or more microprocessors;
• and
• a subnet, the subnet comprising a subnet manager;
• wherein a request for an end port of the subnet to be a member of a data partition defined within the subnet by a unique partition key (P_Key) is received at the subnet manager, the request being sent by the end port of a subnet, the subnet comprising a plurality of subnet resources, the data partition being defined to have access rights to only a subset of the plurality of resources of the subnet;
• wherein upon receiving the request from the end port of the subnet, the subnet manager queries a data store to determine whether a relationship is defined between the end port and an admin partition of the subnet, the admin partition being defined within the subnet by another unique P_Key, the admin partition being further defined to have access rights to all of the plurality of resources of the subnet;
• wherein upon determining the relationship is defined between the end port and the admin partition of the subnet, the subnet manager queries the data store to determine a list of data partitions associated with the admin partition of the subnet;
• wherein the subnet manager receives the list of the data partitions associated with the admin partition of the subnet;
• wherein the subnet manager determines that the data partition defined within the subnet is contained in the list of data partitions received by the subnet manager;
• and
• wherein upon said determination that the data partition defined within the subnet is contained in the list of data partitions received by the subnet manager, the end port is added to the data partition.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, including instructions stored thereon for dynamically assigning membership in a partition, which when read and executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform steps comprising:

• receiving, at a subnet manager and from an end port of a subnet, a request for the end port to be a member of a data partition defined within the subnet by a unique partition key (P_Key), the subnet comprising a plurality of subnet resources, the data partition being defined to have access rights to only a subset of the plurality of resources of the subnet;
• upon receiving the request from the end port of the subnet, querying, by the subnet manager, a data store to determine whether a relationship is defined between the end port and an admin partition of the subnet, the admin partition being defined within the subnet by another unique P_Key, the admin partition being further defined to have access rights to all of the plurality of resources of the subnet;
• upon determining the relationship is defined between the end port and an admin partition of the subnet, querying, by the subnet manager, the data store to determine a list of data partitions associated with the admin partition of the subnet;
• receiving, at the subnet manager, the list of the data partitions associated with the admin partition of the subnet;
• determining, by the subnet manager, that the data partition defined within the subnet is contained in the list of data partitions received by the subnet manager;
• and
• upon said determination that the data partition defined within the subnet is contained in the list of data partitions received by the subnet manager, adding the end port to the data partition.