Dispatching a unit of work to a specialty engine or a general processor and exception handling including continuing execution until reaching a defined exit point or restarting execution at a predefined retry point using a different engine or processor

A system comprising:

• one or more general processors;
• one or more specialty engines, the one or more specialty engines and the one or more general processors differing in hardware, wherein the one or more specialty engines are optimized to execute a specific subset of units of work and are not able to, and non-configurable to, execute other units of work executable by the one or more general processors, the other units of work not belonging to the specific subset of units of work;
• an operating system kernel;
• and
• a memory storing instructions that, upon execution, cause the system to:
• determine whether a first unit of work is to be dispatched to one of the one or more general processors or one of the one or more specialty engines;
• communicate with the operating system kernel to dispatch the first unit of work to a first specialty engine for execution responsive to determining that the first unit of work is to be dispatched to the first specialty engine;
• determine whether an exception has occurred;
• and
• responsive to determining the exception has occurred, communicate with the operating system kernel to determine which of (1) restarting execution of a series of instructions associated with the first unit of work at a defined retry point in the series of instructions using one of a general processor and a second specialty engine and (2) continuing execution of the series of instructions until reaching a defined exit point in the series of instructions to perform.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising executable program code for a logical dispatchable unit engine, the executable program code for the logical dispatchable unit engine comprising program code for:

• identifying a first unit of work to be executed;
• determining whether the first unit of work is to be dispatched to a general processor or a first specialty engine, the first specialty engine and the general processor differing in hardware, the first specialty engine optimized to execute a specific subset of units of work and not able to, and non-configurable to, execute other units of work executable by the general processor, the other units of work not belonging to the specific subset of units of work;
• communicating with an operating system kernel to dispatch the first unit of work for execution by the first specialty engine responsive to determining that the first unit of work is to be dispatched to the first specialty engine;
• determining whether an exception has occurred;
• and
• responsive to determining the exception has occurred, communicating with the operating system kernel to determine which of (1) restarting execution of a series of instructions associated with the first unit of work at a defined retry point in the series of instructions using one of the general processor and a second specialty engine and (2) continuing execution of the series of instructions until reaching a defined exit point in the series of instructions to perform.