System for, and method of, off-loading network transactions from a mainframe to an intelligent input/output device, including off-loading message queuing facilities

• US 6,141,701 A
• Filed: 03/11/1998
• Issued: 10/31/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Messagetec LLC
• Original Assignee: Messagetec LLC
• Inventors: Whitney, Mark M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Thomas C.
• Assistant Examiner(s): SCHUSTER, KATHARINA W
• Application Number:
  US09/038,603
• Time in Patent Office: 965 Days
• Field of Search: 710/6, 710/36, 710/1, 710/5, 710/54, 709/204, 709/300, 709/250, 709/215, 711/152, 711/148, 714/38
• US Class Current: 710/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/52 Program synchronisation; Mutual exclusion, e.g. by means of semaphores
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues

Abstract

A system for, and method of, off-loading network transactions from a mainframe to an intelligent input/output device, including off-loading message queuing facilities. A storage controller has a processor and a memory, in which the controller receives I/O commands having corresponding addresses. In the controller memory, a communication stack is provided for receiving and transmitting information on a network. In addition, a message queue facilities (MQF) is provided that cooperates with the communication stack and that is responsive to a message queue verb. The MQF causes the communication stack to provide information to a queue in the MQF or causes a queue in the MQF to provide information to the communication stack. Moreover, interface logic is provided in the controller memory and is responsive to the I/O commands, to determine whether an I/O command is within a first set of predetermined I/O commands. If so, the interface logic maps the I/O command to a corresponding message queue verb and queue to invoke the MQF. In this fashion, the MQF may cooperate with the communication stack to send and receive information corresponding to the verb, while off-loading the processing from a computer client (e.g., a mainframe) of the storage controller.

Claims

1. In a storage controller having a processor and a memory, in which the controller receives I/O commands having corresponding addresses, a set of processor-executable instructions residing in the memory, comprising:

a communication stack for receiving and transmitting information on a network;

message queue facilities (MQF), cooperating with the communication stack and responsive to a message queue verb, for causing the communication stack to provide information to a queue in the MQF or causing a queue in the MQF to provide information to the communication stack;

interface logic, responsive to the I/O commands, to determine whether an I/O command is within a first set of predetermined I/O commands and, if so, to map the I/O command to a corresponding message queue verb and queue to invoke the MQF such that the MQF may cooperate with the communication stack to send and receive information corresponding to the verb.

2. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 1, wherein the MQF has non-shared queues and wherein the interface logic includes a lock facility having logic to lock a data structure in the memory and corresponding to a queue in response to a first I/O command and to unlock the data structure corresponding to the queue in response to a second I/O command such that the queue may be shared among multiple client computers interacting with the storage controller.

3. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 2, wherein the storage controller includes a lock facility and wherein the interface logic cooperates with the lock facility to lock and unlock the data structure.

4. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 2, wherein the first and the second I/O command are processed by the lock facility to cause the locking and unlocking of the data structure.

5. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 1, wherein a subset of the I/O commands have a limited-size payload, wherein the limited-size payload is smaller than a message size supported by the MQF, and wherein the interface logic includes reassembly logic to form a message queue verb having a payload larger than the limited-size from a plurality of I/O command pay loads.

6. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 5 wherein the controller includes a record-pooling facility for receiving and associating a plurality of I/O commands payloads, wherein the reassembly logic cooperates with the record-pooling facility to gather a plurality of I/O command payloads to form a physically sequential payload therefrom in the memory to be used as a payload of a message queue verb.

7. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 1 wherein the interface logic includes

logic to support Put message queue verbs to a queue in the MQF;

and

logic to support Get message queue verbs to a queue in the MQF.

8. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 7 wherein the logic to support Put message queue verbs includes

logic to support Put verbs having a payload smaller than a limited-size;

logic to support Put verbs having a payload larger than the limited-size; and

logic to support multiple Put verbs as a transactional unit of work.

9. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 7 wherein the logic to support Get message queue verbs includes

logic to support Get verbs having a payload less than a limited-size;

logic to support Get verbs having a payload larger than the limited-size; and

logic to support multiple Get verbs as a transactional unit of work.

10. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 5 wherein the interface logic includes

logic to support Browse message queue verbs to a queue in the MQF.

11. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 7 wherein the logic to support Get message queue verbs includes

logic to detect when the MQF responds with a null message, and

logic to signal a client computer that caused the Get message queue verb when the queue has received a message, so that software executing on the computer may block wait for a response.

12. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 7 wherein the logic to support Put message queue verbs to a queue in the MQF includes

logic, responsive to a first subset of the first set of I/O commands, to retrieve a payload of the I/O command, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to form and issue the Put verb with the retrieved payload to the named queue.

13. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 7 wherein the logic to support Put message queue verbs to a queue in the MQF includes

logic, responsive to a second subset of the first set of I/O commands, to lock a data structure corresponding to the address associated with the I/O command so as to prevent other clients of the I/O controller from performing actions to this address until the data structure is unlocked;

logic, responsive to a third subset of the first set of I/O commands, to retrieve the payload of the I/O command, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to form and issue a Put verb with the retrieved payload to the named queue;

logic, responsive to a fourth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to unlock a data structure corresponding to the address associated with the I/O command so as to allow other actions to this address,

such that a Put to a shared queue may be accomplished by having a client computer issue an I/O command from the second subset to an address corresponding to a named queue, followed by an I/O command from the third subset to the address, followed by an I/O command from the fourth subset to the address.

14. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 7 wherein the logic to support Put message queue verbs to a queue in the MQF includes

logic, responsive to a fifth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to retrieve a payload of the I/O command, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to form and issue a Put verb with Sync-point with the retrieved payload to the named queue to start framing a unit of work;

logic, responsive to a sixth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to retrieve a payload of the I/O command, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to form and issue an intermediate Put verb with the retrieved payload to the named queue;

logic, responsive to a seventh subset of the first set of I/O commands, to retrieve a payload of the I/O command, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, to issue a last Put verb with the retrieved payload to the named queue, and to issue a Commit verb to the named queue to finish framing the unit of work;

logic, responsive to an eighth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to issue a Rollback verb to the named queue to finish framing the unit of work and to abort the unit of work.

15. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 7 wherein the logic to support Get message queue verbs to a queue in the MQF includes

logic, responsive to a ninth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to form and issue a Get verb to the named queue and to return the retrieved payload from the named queue to a client computer causing the Get message.

16. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 7 wherein the logic to support Get message queue verbs to a queue in the MQF includes

logic, responsive to a tenth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to lock a data structure corresponding to the address associated with the I/O command so as to prevent other clients from performing actions to this address until the data structure is unlocked;

logic, responsive to an eleventh subset of the first set of I/O commands, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to form and issue a Get verb to the named queue and to return the retrieved payload from the named queue to a client computer causing the Get message; and

logic, responsive to a twelfth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to unlock a data structure corresponding to the address associated with the I/O command so as to allow other actions to this address,

such that a Get to a shared queue may be accomplished by having a client computer issue an I/O command from the tenth subset to an address corresponding to a named queue, followed by an I/O command from the eleventh subset to the address, followed by an I/O command from the twelfth subset to the address.

17. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 7 wherein the logic to support Get message queue verbs to a queue in the MQF includes

logic, responsive to a thirteenth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to form and issue a Get verb to the named queue to start framing a unit of work;

logic, responsive to a fourteenth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to form and issue an intermediate Get verb to the named queue;

logic, responsive to a fifteenth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to form and issue a last Get verb to the named queue and to issue a Commit verb to the named queue to finish framing the unit of work;

logic, responsive to a sixteenth subset of the first set of I/O commands, to map the address associated with the I/O command to a named queue, and to issue a Rollback verb to the named queue to finish framing the unit of work and to abort the unit of work.

18. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 1 wherein the interface logic includes

address watching logic to determine whether the address of the I/O command is of interest;

mapping logic, cooperating with the address watching logic, to map I/O commands of interest into intermediate actions to the MQF; and

queue watching logic, cooperating with the MQF and the mapping logic, to determine when a message has arrived at a queue in the MQF for a pending Get verb.

19. The set of processor-executable instructions of claim 1 wherein the interface logic includes

means for watching the address of an I/O command to determine whether it is of interest;

means for mapping I/O commands of interest to intermediate actions to the MQF; and

means for watching queues in the MQF to determine when a message has arrived at a queue in the MQF for a pending Get verb.

20. A method of sending and receiving messages according to a MQF protocol, the method comprising the steps of:

sending an I/O command having an address to an I/O controller having residing thereon

a communication stack,

a MQF, cooperating with the communication stack, and

interface logic, cooperating with the MQF;

the interface logic mapping the I/O command to an MQF verb and issuing the verb to the I/O controller-resident MQF;

the I/O controller-resident MQF causing the communication stack to send a message, according to the MQF protocol and corresponding to the MQF verb.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising

sending an I/O command to the I/O controller to cause a data structure corresponding to the address to be locked so as to prevent other clients of the I/O controller from performing actions to the address until the structure is unlocked;

sending an I/O command to the I/O controller to cause a data structure corresponding to the address to be unlocked.

22. The method of claim 20 further comprising the steps of the I/O controller indicating to a client that the MQF does not contain data to respond to a MQF verb so that the client may block wait;

the interface logic detecting when the MQF has data to respond to a MQF verb for which there previously was no data to respond;

the interface logic causing the I/O controller to signal the client that the MQF now has data for the MQF verb for which there previously was no data to respond.