Encapsulated accelerator

• US 10,515,037 B2
• Filed: 01/26/2018
• Issued: 12/24/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/09/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xilinx, Inc. (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: SolarFlare Communications Incorporated (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.)
• Inventors: Pope, Steven L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Survillo, Oleg
• Application Number:
  US15/881,312
• Publication Number:
  US 20180150423A1
• Time in Patent Office: 697 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/102 where the programme performs an interfacing function, e.g. device driver G06F13/105 takes precedence; scheduling within device drivers G06F9/52; contention policies within device drivers G06F9/4881
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/28 using burst mode transfer, e.g. direct memory access DMA, cycle steal G06F13/32 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/362 with centralised access control
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/385 for adaptation of a particular data processing system to different peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4282 on a serial bus, e.g. I2C bus, SPI bus on daisy chain buses G06F13/4247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2213/0058 Bus-related hardware virtualisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2213/3808 Network interface controller
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2212/00 Encapsulation of packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/9068 in the network interface card

Abstract

A data processing system comprising: a host computer system supporting a software entity and a receive queue for the software entity; a network interface device having a controller unit configured to provide a data port for receiving data packets from a network and a data bus interface for connection to a host computer system, the network interface device being connected to the host computer system by means of the data bus interface; and an accelerator module arranged between the controller unit and a network and having a first medium access controller for connection to the network and a second medium access controller coupled to the data port of the controller unit, the accelerator module being configured to: on behalf of the software entity, process incoming data packets received from the network in one or more streams associated with a first set of one or more network endpoints; encapsulate data resulting from said processing in network data packets directed to the software entity; and deliver the network data packets to the data port of the controller unit so as to cause the network data packets to be written to the receive queue of the software entity.

Claims

1. A data processing system comprising;

a host computer system;

a plurality of software domains supported by the host computer system, the plurality of software domains comprising a privileged software domain and a first software domain having an application, wherein the privileged software domain is configured to present an operating platform to the first software domain, the data processing system comprising;

a network interface device for connection to a network, the host computer system and network interface device being coupled together by means of a data bus, the network interface device comprising;

a controller unit having a first data port for connection to a network, a second data port, and a data bus interface connected to said data bus, the controller unit being configured to perform, in dependence on the network endpoints to which data packets received at the network interface device are directed, switching of data packets between the first and second data ports and communication queues at the host computer system; and

an accelerator module having an interface coupled to said second data port of the controller unit and a processor configured to perform one or more functions in hardware on data packets received at the accelerator module, the interface being configured to support one or more first network endpoints.

2. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the plurality of software domains includes a second software domain having a driver library for said accelerator module, the driver library supporting a second network endpoint and the privileged software domain being configured so as to allow the application to access the driver library by means of one or more second data packets directed to said second network endpoint, the second data packets being formed in accordance with the predetermined network protocol.

3. A data processing system as claimed in claim 2, wherein the driver library is configured to manage the accelerator module by means of driver commands encapsulated within data packets of the predetermined network protocol and directed to one or more of the first network endpoints.

4. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the first software domain includes a communications library configured to translate send and receive requests by the application into the transmission and reception of data packets formed in accordance with the predetermined network protocol.

5. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the accelerator module further comprises a memory configured for storing data generated by the said one or more functions performed by the processor, and the application is configured to access said memory by means of one or more read requests encapsulated in one or more first data packets formed in accordance with the predetermined network protocol.

6. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the privileged software domain is a hypervisor or virtual machine monitor.

7. A data processing system as claimed in claim 6, wherein said first software driver is integral with the kernel level code of the hypervisor or virtual machine monitor.

8. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the predetermined network protocol is UDP/IP and the network endpoints can be identified by IP addresses.

9. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the network interface device is an Ethernet network interface device and the first network endpoint can be identified by an Ethernet address.

10. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the application is a trading platform configured to perform trades at one or more financial exchanges accessible by means of the network interface device.

11. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the controller unit is configured to forward data packets received at the second data port to the accelerator module over the first data port only if those data packets are directed to one of the one or more first network endpoints.

12. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the accelerator module comprises a first medium access controller coupled to said second data port of the controller unit.

13. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the plurality of software domains comprises a plurality of guest software domains, wherein the first software domain is a first guest software domain.

14. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the operating platform is a virtual operating platform.

15. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the application is configured to access the accelerator module by means of one or more first data packets formed in accordance with a predetermined network protocol and directed to one or more of the first network endpoints.

16. A data processing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the privileged software domain includes a first software driver for the controller unit but does not include a second software driver for the accelerator module.