Flash DIMM in a Standalone Cache Appliance System and Methodology
First Claim
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1. A standalone cache unit for caching data operations requested from one or more networked data storage devices by one or more remote clients, the standalone cache unit comprising:
- a flash dual in-line memory module (DIMM) cache memory for caching data that is requested by a remote client;
a packet processor coupled to the flash DIMM cache memory and to one or more I/O ports for transparently splicing connections between the data storage devices and remote clients, where the packet processor inspects network protocol traffic state parameters received on the I/O ports to determine if a request from a remote client can be serviced by the standalone cache unit; and
a cache control module for controlling caching operations in the flash DIMM cache memory.
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Abstract
A method, system and program are disclosed for accelerating data storage in a cache appliance cluster that transparently monitors NFS and CIFS traffic between clients and NAS subsystems and caches files in a multi-rank flash DIMM cache memory by pipelining multiple page write and page program operations to different flash memory ranks, thereby improving write speeds to the flash DIMM cache memory.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A standalone cache unit for caching data operations requested from one or more networked data storage devices by one or more remote clients, the standalone cache unit comprising:
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a flash dual in-line memory module (DIMM) cache memory for caching data that is requested by a remote client; a packet processor coupled to the flash DIMM cache memory and to one or more I/O ports for transparently splicing connections between the data storage devices and remote clients, where the packet processor inspects network protocol traffic state parameters received on the I/O ports to determine if a request from a remote client can be serviced by the standalone cache unit; and a cache control module for controlling caching operations in the flash DIMM cache memory. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method for controlling data write operations to a multi-rank flash memory module, comprising:
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programming in parallel at least two data pages into a first group of memory ranks of flash memory chips in the multi-rank flash memory module, where the at least two data pages were previously loaded into a first group of program registers associated with the first group of memory ranks; and loading at least two additional data pages to a second group of program registers associated with a second group of memory ranks of flash memory chips in the multi-rank flash memory module while programming in parallel the at least two data pages into the first group of memory ranks. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A method for caching data operations, comprising:
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receiving at a standalone cache unit a request from a remote client to perform a specified data operation at one or more networked data storage devices; inspecting packet parameters in one or more TCP/IP stack layers associated with the request to determine if the request can be serviced by a flash dual in-line memory module (DIMM) cache memory located at the standalone cache unit; and performing the specified data operation at the DIMM cache memory if the request can be serviced by the standalone cache unit. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification