Low Latency Send Queues In I/O Adapter Hardware
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsThomas A. Gregg, David Craddock, Thomas Schlipf
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Send queues provided in an InfiniBand hardware adapter receive a single transmission from a connected computer system which includes work request information, address vector, and message data. This information is sufficient for the adapter to generate packet header information and to send the requested message, thereby providing a low latency sending mechanism. The system stores completion information in tables each dedicated to one of the send queues.
Claims28
A data processing system comprising:
- a host system for generating a plurality of data messages to be sent over a network fabric;
- and
- a hardware adapter coupled to the host system for receiving at least one of the plurality of data messages and to the network fabric for sending the at least one data message, the adapter comprising a plurality of send queues for storing a plurality of data messages to be sent over the network fabric;
- wherein the host system transmits individual host packets to the hardware adapter each comprising one of said plurality of data messages and each sufficient for the adapter to build a corresponding packet header compatible with the network fabric and for the adapter to send said one of said plurality of data messages with its corresponding packet header over the network fabric.
A computer system comprising:
- a processor, memory, and an adapter slot for generating and sending a single host packet including a data message to the adapter slot for storage in an attached adapter, wherein the single host packet includes data sufficient for the adapter to build a packet header compatible with a connected network fabric and for the adapter to send the data message with the packet header over the network fabric.
A hardware adapter coupled to a host system and to a network, the hardware adapter comprising:
- send queues for storing request packets from the host system, each request packet including message data and header data sufficient for the adapter to construct a packet having a network compatible packet header and the message data to send the message data with the packet header over the network.
A method of sending data packets over a network fabric comprising the steps of:
- a computer system generating and providing a plurality of data messages to be sent over the network fabric and individual host packets each comprising one of said plurality of data messages and each sufficient to build a corresponding packet header compatible with the network fabric;
- receiving at least one of the plurality of data messages;
- storing the at least one of the plurality of data messages to be sent over the network fabric;
- and
- sending said one of said plurality of data messages with its corresponding packet header over the network fabric.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.