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US 7,623,538 B1Granted
Hardware-based network interface per-ring resource accounting
AssigneeSun Microsystems, Inc.
InventorsSunay Tripathi, Nicolas G. Droux, Hsiao-Keng Jerry Chu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Incoming/outgoing data packets to/from a network are processed by associated receive/send rings of a network interface. A plurality of counters, disposed in hardware, are each associated with particular receive/send rings. Each of the plurality of counters maintains a count of a number of data packets processed by an associated receive/send ring.
Claims12
A system, comprising:
- a physical network interface card operatively connected to a network and arranged to operatively propagate data packets from the network to a plurality of receive rings and from at least one send ring to the network;
- a plurality of counters disposed in the physical network interface card and each associated with one of the plurality of receive rings, the plurality of counters each arranged to maintain a count of data packets processed by an associated one of the plurality of receive rings;
- and
- a host system, operatively connected to the physical network interface card, comprising a plurality of virtual serialization queues and a plurality of virtual network interface cards operatively connected to the plurality of virtual serialization queues, wherein each of the plurality of virtual network interface cards is associated with a distinct internet protocol (IP) address, and wherein each of the plurality of virtual network interface cards is associated with at least one of the plurality of receive rings.
1 more element
A method of processing network traffic in a host system, comprising:
- receiving data packets from a network;
- classifying and routing the data packets to a plurality of receive rings in a network interface card, wherein the classification is performed by a classifier using a first routing configuration;
- propagating the data packets from the plurality of receive rings to the host system, wherein the host system comprises a plurality of virtual serialization queues and plurality of virtual network interface cards operatively connected to the plurality of virtual serialization queues, wherein each of the plurality of virtual network interface cards is associated with a distinct internet (IP) address, and wherein each of the plurality of virtual network interface cards is associated with at least one of the plurality of received rings;
- counting, in hardware the network interface card, a number of data packets propagated from each of the plurality of receive rings;
- modifying, based on the counting, the first routing configuration to obtain a second routing configuration;
- and
- classifying and routing the data packets to the plurality of receive rings in the network interface card, wherein the classification is performed by the classifier using the second routing configuration.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.