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METHOD, SYSTEM, COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT, AND HARDWARE PRODUCT FOR ETHERNET VIRTUALIZATION USING AN ELASTIC FIFO MEMORY TO FACILITATE FLOW OF BROADCAST TRAFFIC TO VIRTUAL HOSTS

  • US 20090213857A1
  • Filed: 02/25/2008
  • Published: 08/27/2009
  • Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2008
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method for Ethernet virtualization using an elastic FIFO memory to facilitate flow of broadcast traffic to a virtual host, the method comprising:

  • receiving a packet that represents unknown traffic on a network, the packet including a header;

    examining a the packet header to ascertain that the packet is a broadcast packet;

    passing the packet to a store engine;

    the store engine obtaining a free packet buffer from an elastic first-in, first-out (FIFO) memory, wherein the free packet buffer is an empty packet-sized block of memory in a local data store;

    the store engine moving the packet into the free packet buffer and submitting the packet buffer to the elastic FIFO memory;

    an assist engine finding the packet buffer on the named queue of broadcast packets and then determining a connection to the packet and moving the packet from the named queue to the numbered connection queue for that connection;

    a local engine performing a monitoring procedure to detect both an availability of connection-specific resources and a presence of one or more waiting packets with a known destination connection;

    when (a) a destination connection with one or more waiting packets, and (b) available connection-specific resources, are both detected, removing the packet from the local data store;

    an allocator allocating the one or more connection-specific resources required to send the packet to the virtual host memory corresponding to the connection destination; and

    a send engine writing the packet to the virtual host memory.

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