LAN emulation over infiniband fabric apparatus, systems, and methods
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorArlin R. Davis
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and device for local area network (LAN) emulation over an Infiniband (IB) fabric. An IB LAN driver at a first node on an IB fabric receives the port and associated local identifier (LID) of one or more remote peer nodes on the IB fabric. An IEEE 802.3 Ethernet MAC address with one LID imbedded is generated. The imbedded LID is for one or more remote peer nodes. The IB LAN driver sends the Ethernet MAC address to an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP). A logical address of a remote peer node is generated by a network protocol. The logical address is mapped to an Ethernet MAC address. The IB LAN driver sends the Ethernet MAC address onto the IB fabric to the one or more remote peer nodes. The remote peer nodes appear to reside on an Ethernet network to the network protocol.
Claims20
A method, including:
- at a local Infiniband (IB) node on an IB subnet, interfacing an IB protocol driver to a network protocol driver associated with a network protocol stack using a local Infiniband local area network (IBLAN) driver by emulating an Ethernet network interface card (NIC) driver at an interface between the local IBLAN driver and the network protocol driver;
- receiving an outbound Ethernet frame from the network protocol driver;
- embedding the outbound Ethernet frame in at least one outbound IB request packet to tunnel the outbound Ethernet frame across the IB subnet;
- and
- causing the at least one outbound IB request packet to be sent to at least one remote IB node on the IB subnet.
An article including a machine-accessible, non-transitory medium having stored therein associated information, wherein the information, when accessed, results in a machine performing:
- at a local Infiniband (IB) node on an IB subnet, interfacing an IB protocol driver to a network protocol driver associated with a network protocol stack using a local Infiniband local area network (IBLAN) driver by emulating an Ethernet network interface card (NIC) driver at an interface between the local IBLAN driver and the network protocol driver;
- receiving an outbound Ethernet frame from the network protocol driver;
- embedding the outbound Ethernet frame in at least one outbound IB request packet to tunnel the outbound Ethernet frame across the IB subnet;
- and
- causing the at least one outbound IB request packet to be sent to at least one remote IB node on the IB subnet.
A system, including:
- at least one local IBLAN driver module coupled between an IB protocol driver module and a network protocol driver module associated with a network protocol stack at a local IB node on an IB subnet, the IBLAN driver module to emulate an Ethernet network interface card (NIC) driver at an interface between the at least one local IBLAN driver module and the network protocol driver module;
- a connection services component within the IBLAN driver module to receive an outbound Ethernet frame from the network protocol driver module, to embed the outbound Ethernet frame in at least one outbound IB request packet in order to tunnel the outbound Ethernet frame across the IB subnet, and to forward the at least one outbound IB request packet to the IB protocol driver module for transmission to at least one remote IB node on the IB subnet;
- and
- a fiber optic cable to connect the local IB node to the IB subnet.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.