Virtual devices and virtual bus tunnels, modules and methods

• US 20060272015A1
• Filed: 05/26/2005
• Published: 11/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intellectual Ventures I LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Rateze Remote Mgmt. L.L.C. (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Ludwig, Thomas Earl, Frank, Charles William, Adams, Mark, Babbitt, William R. Jr., Witchey, Nicholas James
• Granted Patent: US 7,620,981 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

Modules and methods that provide virtual device communication via information packets addressed to the virtual devices. Virtual devices aggregate capabilities of target devices and represent the aggregate as an operational device to remote systems. Physical device elements and virtual devices contained within modules are able to communicate and cooperate over extended distances in a peer-to-peer fashion via a virtual bus tunnel offering addressing and data transport functionality. Such modules and methods can be combined with disk drives to form RAID-like storage structures.

Claims

1-48. -48. (canceled)

49. A module comprising:

a processing unit and memory that cooperate to run software that aggregates first and second resources, in a manner that appears to an external user as a virtual device, and uses a host address assigned to the virtual device to facilitate communication over a network between the user and the resources; and

wherein the host address is other than an address of the module, and the virtual device doesn'"'"'t have a unique frame address.

50. The module of claim 49, wherein the software comprises at least one of the following:

an application, a program, a task, a thread, a function, and a device driver.

51. The module of claim 49, wherein the host address comprises a routable address.

52. The module of claim 51, wherein the routable address comprises at least one of an IPv4 and an IPv6 address.

53. The module of claim 49, wherein the network comprises an internetworking protocol.

54. The module of claim 49, further comprising a target device interface that provides the module access to a target device that is not a resource aggregated by the module.

55. The module of claim 54, wherein the target device comprises a physical memory device.

56. The module of claim 54, wherein the target device interface comprises at least one of the following interfaces:

SATA, PATA, SCSI, and fiber channel.

57. The module of claim 49, further comprising a virtual bus tunnel that provides communication between the virtual device and a second virtual device via an information packet having the host address of the virtual device.

58. The module of claim 57, wherein the virtual bus tunnel comprises a multicast group that includes the virtual device and at least the second virtual device.

59. The module of claim 58, wherein the multicast group forms at least one of a mirror group, a span, a stripe, or a RAID group.

60. The module of claim 58, wherein the first resource is fungible with the second resource.

61. The module of claim 58, wherein the first and second resources are of different types or classes.

62. A method of communicating between (i) a first virtual device represented by a first software construct stored in a memory of a first module and (ii) a second virtual device represented by a second software construct stored in a memory of a second module, the method comprising:

(a) associating the first virtual device with a first physical device element and associating the second virtual device with a second physical device element;

(b) assigning the first virtual device a first host address on a network, and the second virtual device a second host address on the network, wherein the host addresses are other than network addresses of the corresponding modules, and the virtual devices do not have unique frame addresses; and

(b) exchanging packets between the first and second virtual devices via a virtual bus tunnel over the network, wherein the packets include at least one of the host addresses.

63. The method of claim 62, further comprising forming a multicast group that includes the first and second virtual device.

64. The method of claim 63, wherein the multicast group has a multicast address on the network.

65. The method of claim 62, wherein the first and second physical device elements are independently selected from the list comprising a memory, a processor, a monitor, and a keyboard.