US 8,274,976 B2 · Method and system for transparent TCP offload

Abstract

Certain aspects of a method and system for transparent transmission control protocol (TCP) offload are disclosed. Aspects of a method may include collecting TCP segments in a network interface card (NIC) processor without transferring state information to a host system. The collected TCP segments may be buffered in a coalescer. The coalescer may verify that the network flow associated with the collected TCP segments has an entry in a flow lookup table (FLT). When the FLT is full, the coalescer may close a current entry and assign the network flow to the available entry. The coalescer may also update information in the FLT. When an event occurs that terminates the collection of TCP segments, the coalescer may generate a single aggregated TCP segment based on the collected TCP segments. The aggregated TCP segment and state information may be communicated to the host system for processing.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A method for processing network information, the method comprising:

maintaining a flow lookup table (FLT) which comprises flow identifiers that define network flows;
obtaining a particular flow identifier from among the flow identifiers in the flow lookup table, the particular flow identifier specifying a TCP segment characteristic defining a particular network flow from among the network flows for aggregation;
collecting a plurality of transmission control protocol (TCP) segments by a network interface card (NIC) processor, said plurality of transmission control protocol (TCP) segments received for the particular network flow which matches the particular flow identifier without transferring current state information regarding the particular network flow to a host system;
generating a new TCP segment and new state information based on aggregating at least a portion of said collected plurality of said TCP segments received for the particular network flow;
and
communicating said generated new TCP segment and said new state information for the generated new TCP segment to the host system.

3 more elements

A system for processing network information, the system comprising:

a flow lookup table (FLT) comprising flow identifiers that define network flows;
one or more processors operable to:
obtain a particular flow identifier from among the flow identifiers in the flow lookup table, the particular flow identifier specifying a TCP segment characteristic defining a particular network flow from among the network flows for aggregation;
collect a plurality of transmission control protocol (TCP) segments received for the particular network flow which matches the particular flow identifier without transferring current state information regarding the particular network flow to a host system;
and
said one or more processors is operable to generate a new TCP segment and new state information based on aggregating at least a portion of said collected plurality of said TCP segments received for said particular network flow, wherein said one or more processors further operable to communicate said generated new TCP segment and new state information for the generated new TCP segment to the host system.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and system for transparent TCP offload

Life of this patent

Method and system for transparent TCP offload

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims18