Virtual devices and virtual bus tunnels, modules and methods

• US 7,620,981 B2
• Filed: 05/26/2005
• Issued: 11/17/2009
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Zand; Kambiz
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shaifer Harriman; Dant B
• Application Number:
  US11/139,206
• Publication Number:
  US 20060272015A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,636 Days
• Field of Search: 726/15
• 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. A method comprising:

associating, with a packet processor, a first virtual device with a first physical device element, which is a disk drive, and a second virtual device with a second physical device element;

assigning, by the packet processor, the first virtual device a first host address and the second virtual device a second host address, wherein the first and second host addresses are different network routable addresses that are both associated with a common frame address that corresponds to a network interface that communicatively couples the packet processor to a network;

receiving, by the packet processor, an information packet from the network interface, the information packet having a control portion including the first host address;

routing, by the packet processor, the information packet to the first virtual device; and

associating, by the packet processor, the first virtual device with a plurality of disk drives, wherein the first virtual device is a multicast group of logical partitions distributed over the plurality of disk drives.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said receiving comprises receiving the information packet from the network interface via a virtual bus tunnel.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the information packet is a first information packet and the method further comprises:

receiving a second information packet from the second virtual device determining that the second information packet has a device format;

configuring the second information packet with a host address of a third virtual device; and

transmitting the second information packet to the third virtual device via a virtual bus tunnel.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing, by the packet processor, a localized domain name server system; and

routing the information packet based at least in part on said accessing.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second virtual devices are respectively represented by first and second software constructs stored in a memory of a transform module.

6. A transform module comprising:

a network interface having a frame address and configured to communicatively couple the transform module to a network;

a packet processor coupled with the network interface and configured to associate a first virtual device with a first physical device element, which is a disk drive, and a second virtual device with a second physical device element;

to assign the first virtual device a first host address and the second virtual device a second host address, wherein the first and second host addresses are different network routable address;

to receive an information packet via the network interface, the information packet having a control portion including the first host address;

to route the information packet to the first virtual device; and

to associate the first virtual device with a plurality of disk drives, wherein the first virtual device is a multicast group of logical partitions distributed over the plurality of disk drives.

7. The transform module of claim 6, wherein the first virtual device is an application, a program, a task, a thread, a function, and/or a device driver.

8. The transform module of claim 6, wherein the first host address comprises an IPv4 or an IPv6 address.

9. The transform module of claim 6, further comprising:

a target device interface that provides the transform module access to the first and second physical device elements.

10. The transform module of claim 9, wherein the target device interface includes a serial AT attachment (SATA) interface, a parallel AT attachment (PATA) interface, a small computer system interface (SCSI), and/or fiber channel interface.

11. The transform module of claim 9, wherein the target device interface is a homogenous interface.

12. The transform module of claim 9, wherein the target device interface is a heterogenous interface.

13. The transform module of claim 6, wherein the packet processor is further configured to route the information packet to the first virtual device via a virtual bus tunnel.

14. A computing system comprising:

an operating system configured to be communicatively coupled with an application, to receive a plurality of calls from the application, and to issue, based at least in part on the plurality of calls, a plurality of device-level requests having device formats; and

a transform module coupled with the operating system and configured

to receive the plurality of device-level requests and to generate a first information packet, which includes a first host address, and a second information packet, which includes a second host address, wherein the first and second host addresses are distinct, network-routable addresses that are respectively assigned to first and second virtual devices of a networked device, wherein the first virtual device is associated with a plurality of disk drives and the first virtual device is a multicast group of logical partitions distributed over the plurality of disk drives; and

to transmit the first and second information packets to the networked device through a virtual bus tunnel.

15. The computing system of claim 14, wherein transform module is configured to generate the first information packet with a split identifier including the first host address and a logical block address.