Multiprotocol offload engine architecture
AssigneeLockheed Martin Corporation
InventorsCarl J. Peters, Agustinus Darmawan, James H. Galasso, Jr.
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A device and method in which data transmissions to and from host processors in accordance with various protocols (e.g., TCP, UDP, FTP) are translated to and from NACK-Oriented Reliable Multicast (NORM) protocol data transmissions. A Multiprotocol Offload Engine (MOE) software architecture may perform the translations within a Network Interface Card (NIC) or Network Blade (NB) hardware platform. Moving the protocol translation processing from the host processors to the MOE hardware unit removes the protocol processing load from the host processor and significantly increases performance of data transmission among sources and sinks across a network layer.
Claims22
A networking device comprising:
- a hardware unit interposed between a host processor and a network layer, the hardware unit including at least one processor;
- and
- computer program instructions executable by said at least one processor, said computer program instructions including:
- a transmission control protocol (TCP) module, wherein said TCP module implements a TCP specification to transmit and receive data to and from the host processor;
- a user datagram protocol (UDP) module, wherein said UDP module implements a UDP specification to transmit and receive data to and from the host processor;
- a file transfer protocol (FTP) module, wherein said FTP module implements a FTP specification to transmit and receive data to and from the host processor;
- and
- a negative-acknowledgment oriented reliable multicast (NORM) module, wherein said NORM module implements a NORM protocol specification to transmit and receive data to and from the network layer;
- wherein said NORM module further translates at least one of TCP, UDP and FTP data transmissions into NORM data transmissions;
- and
- wherein said NORM module further translates NORM data transmissions into at least one of TCP, UDP and FTP data transmissions.
A method for use in transmitting data between a host processor and a network layer, said method comprising:
- interposing a hardware unit in a communication path between the host processor and the network layer, the hardware unit including at least one processor;
- and
- executing computer program instructions with the at least one processor of the hardware unit to:
- implement a transmission control protocol (TCP) module to transmit and receive data to and from the host processor in accordance with a TCP specification;
- implement a user datagram protocol (UDP) module to transmit and receive data to and from the host processor in accordance with a UDP specification;
- implement a file transfer protocol (FTP) module to transmit and receive data to and from the host processor in accordance with a FTP specification;
- implement a negative-acknowledgment oriented reliable multicast (NORM) stack module to transmit and receive data to and from the network layer in accordance with a NORM protocol specification;
- translate at least one of TCP, UDP and FTP data transmissions into NORM data transmissions;
- and
- translate NORM data transmissions into at least one of TCP, UDP and FTP data transmissions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.