NETWORK DEVICES WITH MULTIPLE FULLY ISOLATED AND INDEPENDENTLY RESETTABLE DIRECT MEMORY ACCESS CHANNELS AND METHODS THEREOF

• US 20150019923A1
• Filed: 01/19/2010
• Published: 01/15/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: F5 Networks, Inc. (F5 Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: F5 Networks, Inc. (F5 Incorporated)
• Inventors: Michels, Timothy, Jones, Clay
• Granted Patent: US 9,152,483 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/718
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/00 Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring error detection, correction or monitoring in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer G11B20/18; monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing G11B27/36; in static stores G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1438 Restarting or rejuvenating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1443 Transmit or communication errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/16 Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware
• 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 15/17331 Distributed shared memory [DSM], e.g. remote direct memory access [RDMA]

Abstract

A method, computer readable medium, and system independently managing network applications within a network traffic management device communicating with networked clients and servers include monitoring with a network device a plurality of applications communicating over a plurality of direct memory access (DMA) channels established across a bus. The network device receives a request from a first application communicating over a first DMA channel in the plurality of DMA channels to restart the first DMA channel. In response to the request, the first DMA channel is disabled with the network device while allowing other executing applications in the plurality of applications to continue to communicate over other DMA channels in the plurality of DMA channels. A state of the first DMA channel is cleared independently from other DMA channels in the plurality of DMA channels, and communications for the first application over the first DMA channel are resumed with the network device.

Claims

1. A method for independently managing network applications, the method comprising:

monitoring with a network device a plurality of applications, each communicating over a respective one of a plurality of direct memory access (DMA) channels established across a bus;

disabling with the network device a first DMA channel in the plurality of DMA channels in response to at least one of receiving a request from a first one of the plurality of applications to restart the first DMA channel or detecting a malfunction associated with the first one of the plurality of applications, while allowing other executing applications in the plurality of applications to continue to communicate over other DMA channels in the plurality of DMA channels;

clearing with the network device a state of the first DMA channel independently from other DMA channels in the plurality of DMA channels; and

resuming with the network device communications for the first application over the first DMA channel.

2. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the disabling comprises maintaining a memory buffer in at least one of an active state while in-flight DMA operations are processed or an idle state when the in-flight DMA operations are completed or flushed from the memory buffer.

3. The method as set forth in claim 2, wherein the in-flight DMA operations comprise DMA operations stored in the memory buffer prior to disabling the first DMA channel.

4. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the disabling the first DMA channel further comprises ceasing to process DMA operation requests from the first application relating to at least one of sending or fetching data packets.

6. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the resuming communications further comprises:

restoring a power-on state for one or more registers in the network device associated with the disabled first DMA channel; and

restarting the DMA channel based upon the restored power-on state, the restarted DMA channel supporting the first application after restarting.

7. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the resuming communications further comprises communicating to one or more host processors in the network device a status update associated with a restarting of the disabled first DMA channel.

5. (canceled)

8. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for independently managing network applications comprising machine executable code which when executed by at least one processor, causes the processor to perform steps comprising:

monitoring a plurality of applications, each communicating over a respective one of a plurality of direct memory access (DMA) channels established across a bus;

disabling a first DMA channel in the plurality of DMA channels in response to at least one of receiving a request from a first one of the plurality of applications to restart the first DMA channel or detecting a malfunction associated with the first one of the plurality of applications, while allowing other executing applications in the plurality of applications to continue to communicate over other DMA channels in the plurality of DMA channels;

clearing a state of the first DMA channel independently from other DMA channels in the plurality of DMA channels; and

resuming communications for the first application over the first DMA channel.

9. The medium as set forth in claim 8, wherein the disabling comprises maintaining a memory buffer in at least one of an active state while in-flight DMA operations are processed or an idle state when the in-flight DMA operations are completed or flushed from the memory buffer.

10. The medium as set forth in claim 9, wherein the in-flight DMA operations comprise DMA operations stored in the memory buffer prior to disabling the first DMA channel.

11. The medium as set forth in claim 8 wherein the disabling the first DMA channel further comprises ceasing to process DMA operation requests from the first application relating to at least one of sending or fetching data packets.

13. The medium as set forth in claim 8 wherein the resuming communications further comprises:

restoring a power-on state for one or more registers associated with the disabled first DMA channel; and

restarting the DMA channel based upon the restored power-on state, the restarted DMA channel supporting the first application after restarting.

14. The medium as set forth in claim 8, wherein the resuming communications further comprises communicating to one or more host processors in the network device a status update associated with a restarting of the disabled first DMA channel.

12. (canceled)

15. An application delivery controller apparatus comprising:

at least one of configurable hardware logic configured to implement or a processor or a network interface coupled to a memory and configured to execute programmed instructions stored in the memory comprising;

monitoring a plurality of applications, each communicating over a respective one of a plurality of direct memory access (DMA) channels established across a bus;

disabling a first DMA channel in the plurality of DMA channels in response to at least one of receiving a request from a first one of the plurality of applications to restart the first DMA channel or detecting a malfunction associated with the first one of the plurality of applications, while allowing other executing applications in the plurality of applications to continue to communicate over other DMA channels in the plurality of DMA channels;

clearing a state of the first DMA channel subsequent to the disabling and independently from other DMA channels in the plurality of DMA channels; and

resuming communications for the first application over the first DMA channel after the state of the first DMA channel is cleared.

16. The apparatus as set forth in claim 15, wherein the disabling comprises maintaining a memory buffer in at least one of an active state while in-flight DMA operations are processed or an idle state when the in-flight DMA operations are completed or flushed from the memory buffer.

17. The apparatus as set forth in claim 16, wherein the in-flight DMA operations comprise DMA operations stored in the memory buffer prior to disabling the first DMA channel.

18. The apparatus as set forth in claim 15, wherein the disabling the first DMA channel further comprises ceasing to process DMA operation requests from the first application relating to at least one of sending or fetching data packets.

20. The apparatus as set forth in claim 15, wherein the resuming communications further comprises:

restoring a power-on state for one or more registers in the network device associated with the disabled first DMA channel; and

restarting the DMA channel based upon the restored power-on state, the restarted DMA channel supporting the first application after restarting.

21. The apparatus as set forth in claim 15, wherein the resuming communications further comprises communicating to one or more host processors in the network device a status update associated with a restarting of the disabled first DMA channel.

19. (canceled)