Differentiating Traffic Types in a Multi-Root PCI Express Environment

A computer program product comprising a computer recordable medium having a computer readable program recorded thereon, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a data processing system, causes the data processing system to:

• generate a first mapping data structure that, for each single-root virtual hierarchy in the data processing system, associates a plurality of traffic classes with a plurality of priority groups and maps each traffic class in the plurality of traffic classes to a corresponding virtual channel in a plurality of virtual channels;
• generate a second mapping data structure that maps each virtual channel in the plurality of virtual channels to a corresponding virtual link in a plurality of virtual links of the data processing system;
• and
• route traffic of a particular priority group from a single-root virtual hierarchy to a particular virtual link in the plurality of the virtual links based on the first mapping data structure and second mapping data structure.

A data processing system, comprising:

• a hardware management console;
• and
• a host system coupled to the hardware management console, wherein the hardware management console:
• generates a first mapping data structure that, for each single-root virtual hierarchy in the data processing system, associates a plurality of traffic classes with a plurality of priority groups and maps each traffic class in the plurality of traffic classes to a corresponding virtual channel in a plurality of virtual channels;
• generates a second mapping data structure that maps each virtual channel in the plurality of virtual channels to a corresponding virtual link in a plurality of virtual links of the data processing system;
• and
• configures a communication fabric manager of the host system to route traffic of a particular priority group from a single-root virtual hierarchy to a particular virtual link in the plurality of the virtual links based on the first mapping data structure and second mapping data structure.