Partition adjunct for data processing system

• US 8,219,988 B2
• Filed: 04/28/2008
• Issued: 07/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/02/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Armstrong, William J., Krieger, Orran Y., Ostrowski, Michal, Swanberg, Randal C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Puente, Emerson
• Assistant Examiner(s): SWIFT, CHARLES M
• Application Number:
  US12/110,923
• Publication Number:
  US 20090037906A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,534 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1475 in a virtual system, e.g. with translation means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1491 in a hierarchical protection system, e.g. privilege levels, memory rings
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1056 Simplification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A partition adjunct is provided for a logical partition running above a hypervisor of a data processing system. The partition adjunct, which is a separate dispatchable partition from an instantiating logical partition, provides one or more services to the logical partition. A service request received from the logical partition is processed by the partition adjunct utilizing virtual address space donated to the partition adjunct from the logical partition. The partition adjunct and the logical partition share a common virtual address to real address page table, and context switching the current state machine from the logical partition to the partition adjunct occurs without invalidating or modifying state data of selected memory management and address translation hardware of the data processing system. In a hardware multithreaded system, the partition adjunct is dispatched on a single thread, while another thread continues to run in the logical partition initiating the service request.

Claims

1. A method in a data processing system for processing a service request, the method comprising:

obtaining by a partition adjunct of the data processing system a service request from a logical partition of the data processing system;

processing the service request by the partition adjunct utilizing a virtual address space donated to the partition adjunct from the logical partition, wherein the partition adjunct and the logical partition both run in virtual address space assigned to the logical partition, and from perspective of a processor of the data processing system, the partition adjunct is part of the logical partition; and

wherein the partition adjunct and the logical partition are mapped to a common virtual address to real address page table of the logical partition, the virtual address space donated to the partition adjunct being part of the common virtual address to real address page table of the logical partition, and wherein the method further comprises dispatching the partition adjunct by context switching a current state machine of the data processing system from the logical partition to the partition adjunct without invalidating or modifying state data within selected memory management and address translation hardware of the data processing system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected memory management and address translation hardware includes floating point registers and vector registers, and wherein the context switching the current state machine to the partition adjunct occurs without modifying or invalidating state data of the logical partition in the floating point registers and vector registers.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory management and address translation hardware comprises a segment lookaside buffer for caching effective to virtual address translations and a translation lookaside buffer for caching virtual address to real address translations, and wherein context switching the current state machine between the logical partition and the partition adjunct occurs without invalidating state data within the translation lookaside buffer or the segment lookaside buffer.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising initially creating the partition adjunct, the creating comprising:

initiating, by the logical partition, creation of the partition adjunct;

invoking a hypervisor of the data processing system to instantiate the partition adjunct with resources donated from the initiating logical partition, the donated resources comprising a donated virtual address space and a donated memory space of the logical partition;

creating, by the hypervisor, the partition adjunct and assigning the donated virtual address space and memory space to the created partition adjunct; and

wherein the hypervisor creates a new dispatchable state for the partition adjunct which is dispatchable on the data processing system to process the service request from the initiating logical partition without a full context switch of the memory management and address translation hardware of the data processing system from the initiating logical partition to the partition adjunct.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the logical partition comprises a virtual input output server partition, and wherein the partition adjunct is a global partition adjunct available for attachment from at least one other logical partition, wherein the attachment comprises donating by the at least one other logical partition virtual address space thereof for the global partition adjunct, and mapping by the hypervisor the global partition adjunct into the donated virtual address space of the at least one other logical partition to create virtual input output mapping for the at least one other logical partition to the global partition adjunct.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the data processing system comprises a hardware multithreaded data processing system, and wherein processing the service request by the partition adjunct comprises dispatching the partition adjunct on a single thread of the hardware multithreaded data processing system, while at least one other thread of the hardware multithreaded data processing system continues to run in the logical partition issuing the service request.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising dispatching the partition adjunct by context switching the current state machine of the single thread of the hardware multithreaded data processing system from the logical partition to the partition adjunct without invalidating or modifying selected memory management and address translation hardware of the single thread.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the selected memory management and address translation hardware comprises floating point registers and vector registers, which maintain state data of the logical partition, and wherein the context switching comprises switching general purpose register state data from the logical partition to the partition adjunct, and wherein a segment lookaside buffer of the single thread and entries of a translation lookaside buffer associated with the single thread retain state data of the logical partition after the context switching the current state machine to the partition adjunct.

9. A method of creating a partition adjunct, the method comprising:

initiating, by an initiating logical partition of a plurality of logical partitions of a data processing system, creation of a partition adjunct, the initiating logical partition having assigned thereto a distinct virtual address space;

invoking a hypervisor of the data processing system to instantiate the partition adjunct with resources donated from the initiating logical partition, the donated resources comprising a portion of the distinct virtual address space assigned to the initiating logical partition and a donated memory space of the initiating logical partition;

creating, by the hypervisor, the partition adjunct and associating therewith the donated memory space, and the donated portion of the distinct virtual address space assigned to the initiating logical partition; and

wherein the hypervisor creates a new dispatchable state for the partition adjunct which is dispatchable on the data processing system to process a service request from the initiating, logical partition without a full context switch of a current state machine from the initiating logical partition to the partition adjunct, wherein the partition adjunct and the logical partition both run in virtual address space assigned to the logical partition, and from perspective of a processor of the data processing system, the partition adjunct is part of the logical partition.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the service request comprises an input or output service request, and wherein creating by the hypervisor the partition adjunct and associating the donated virtual address space and memory space to the created partition adjunct comprises setting up enforcement by the hypervisor that the donated virtual address space and memory space are to be inaccessible by the initiating logical partition.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the initiating logical partition comprises a virtual input output server partition, and wherein the partition adjunct is a global partition adjunct available for attachment from at least one other logical partition, wherein the attachment comprises donating by the at least one other logical partition virtual address space thereof for the global partition adjunct, and mapping by the hypervisor the global partition adjunct into the donated virtual address space of the at least one other logical partition to create virtual input output mapping for the at least one other logical partition to the global partition adjunct.

12. A data processing system comprising:

a processor comprising a logical partition and a partition adjunct to process a service request from the logical partition;

wherein the partition adjunct and the logical partition share a virtual address space range, the partition adjunct processing the service request utilizing virtual address space donated to the partition adjunct from the logical partition, wherein the partition adjunct and the logical partition both run in virtual address space assigned to the logical partition, and from perspective of a processor of the data processing system, the partition adjunct is part of the logical partition; and

wherein the partition adjunct and the logical partition are mapped to a common virtual address to real address page table of the logical partition, the virtual address space donated to the partition adjunct being part of the common virtual address to real address page table of the logical partition, and wherein the data processing system further comprises memory management and address translation hardware to facilitate processing of the service request, wherein processing of the service request comprises context switching a current state machine of the data processing system from the logical partition to the partition adjunct without invalidating or modifying state data within selected memory management and address translation hardware of the data processing system.

13. The data processing system of claim 12, wherein the memory management and address translation hardware comprises a segment lookaside buffer for caching effective to virtual address translations and a translation lookaside buffer for caching virtual address to real address translations, and wherein context switching the current state machine between the logical partition and the partition adjunct occurs without invalidating state data within the translation lookaside buffer or the segment lookaside buffer.

14. The data processing system of claim 12, wherein the data processing system comprises a hardware multithreaded data processing system, and wherein processing the service request by the partition adjunct comprises dispatching the partition adjunct on a single thread of the hardware multithreaded data processing system, while at least one other thread of the hardware multithreaded data processing system continues to run in the logical partition issuing the service request.

15. An article of manufacture comprising:

at least one computer-usable storage medium having computer-readable program code logic to define a method for processing a service request, the computer-readable program code logic when executing on a processor performing;

obtaining by a partition adjunct of the data processing system a service request from a logical partition of the data processing system;

processing the service request by the partition adjunct utilizing a virtual address space donated to the partition adjunct from the logical partition, wherein the partition adjunct and the logical partition both run in virtual address space assigned to the logical partition, and from perspective of a processor of the data processing system, the partition adjunct is part of the logical partition; and

wherein the partition adjunct and the logical partition are mapped to a common virtual address to real address page table of the logical partition, the virtual address space donated to the partition adjunct being part of the common virtual address to real address page table of the logical partition, and wherein the computer-readable program code logic when executing on the processor performing dispatching of the partition adjunct by context switching a current state machine of the processor from the logical partition to the partition adjunct without invalidating or modifying state data within selected memory management and address translation hardware of the processor.

16. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein the memory management and address translation hardware comprises a segment lookaside buffer for caching effective to virtual address translations and a translation lookaside buffer for caching virtual address to real address translations, and wherein context switching the current state machine between the logical partition and the partition adjunct occurs without invalidating state data within the translation lookaside buffer or the segment lookaside buffer.

17. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein the processor comprises a hardware multithreaded data processing system, and wherein processing the service request by the partition adjunct comprises dispatching the partition adjunct on a single thread of the hardware multithreaded data processing system, while at least one other thread of the hardware multithreaded data processing system continues to run in the logical partition issuing the service request.