Switch network extension of bus architecture
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsJames W. Feeney, John D. Jabusch, Robert F. Lusch, Howard T. Olnowich, George W. Wilhelm, Jr.
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Abstract
An electronic switching and data transmission system for interconnecting a plurality of buses. A switching network interconnects several multi-drop buses using adapters to connect the buses to the switching network. The adapters implements hardware functions to appear to software as if all devices on the several buses were attached to a single large bus. The system permits higher speed transfer modes by eliminating multi-drop bus limitations.
Claims14
An apparatus for interconnecting computer systems, the apparatus comprising:
- a plurality of parallel computer system buses, including a first system node bus and a second system node bus;
- a switch network interconnecting said first and second system system node buses for establishing a direct, node to node communication path;
- and
- a plurality of network adapters, each said network adapter connected to said switch network and to at least one of said computer system buses, including:
- means responsive to a bus sequence message including destination address and data on said first system node bus for determining if said destination address is for a device not on said first system node bus and, if not, for transmitting said bus sequence message to said switch network;
- and
- means responsive to said destination address for converting said destination address into a switch connection control code for routing said bus sequence message through said switch network and for appending said switch connection control code to said bus sequence message;
- and
- said switch network being responsive to said switch connection control code for establishing a direct port to port circuit connection to said second system node bus, stripping said switch connection control code from said message and transmitting said bus sequence message to said second system node bus.
An apparatus for increasing the capacity of a bus architecture by interconnecting a plurality of parallel buses over a multi-stage switch network, the apparatus comprising:
- a multi-stage switch network for communicating messages having an address portion and a data portion;
- sending adapter means connected to a first parallel bus responsive to said address portion for deriving an outgoing network address for routing said message through said multi-stage switch network to a destination bus, and for transmitting said outgoing network address and message to said multi-stage switch network;
- and
- receiving adapter means connected to said multi-stage switch network and to a second parallel bus for receiving said message and, responsive to said address portion, for routing said message to one of a plurality of devices connected to said second parallel bus.
A method for establishing a high-speed communications path through a switch network interconnecting a plurality of high performance parallel buses over a multi-stage switch network, comprising the steps of:
- operating a first system node to load onto a first bus a communication message, said communication message including a destination port address and data;
- operating an adapter connected to said first bus to recognize and translate a predetermined destination port address into a switching path address;
- responsive to said switching path address, establishing a node to node communication link and communicating said communication message to said destination port;
- and
- responsive to said destination port address, operating an adapter connected to a second bus at said destination port to route said data to a device connected to said second bus.
Apparatus for attaching a high performance parallel system bus to a multi-stage switch having M stages, comprising:
- a first tap adaptable to receive from said system bus a multi-bit message including an address portion and a data portion;
- a first address converter for generating from said address portion a stripable routing control code having M code portions;
- and
- a second tap adaptable to load to said switch said stripable routing control code together with said multi-bit message.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.