Information packet communication with virtual objects

• US 8,387,132 B2
• Filed: 10/06/2009
• Issued: 02/26/2013
• 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: Adams, Mark, Witchey, Nicholas James, Frank, Charles William, Ludwig, Thomas Earl, Babbitt, Jr., William R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Powers, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): SHAIFER HARRIMAN, DANT B
• Application Number:
  US12/574,622
• Publication Number:
  US 20100095023A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,239 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:

assigning, by a packet processor executing on a processing unit of an electronic device, a first host address to a first virtual object, the first virtual object being a logical drive partition that represents an aggregation of storage capabilities of a plurality of storage devices;

assigning, by the packet processor, a second host address to a second virtual object, 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;

transforming, by the packet processor, the information packet into a device-level request that is in a device format compatible with a first storage device of the plurality of storage devices; and

issuing, by the packet processor, the device-level request to the first storage device of the plurality of storage devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the device-level request comprises a first device-level request and the method further comprises:

issuing a second device-level request to a second storage device of the plurality of storage devices based on the information packet.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second virtual objects represent an aggregation of a heterogenous mix of operational capabilities.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of storage devices comprise a plurality of disk drives and the logical drive partition is associated with a multicast group of physical partitions distributed over the plurality of disk drives.

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

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

receiving a second information packet;

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

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

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

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the network interface, the information packet from a remote user device via the network.

9. An apparatus comprising:

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

a physical processing device coupled with the network interface and configured to execute a packet processor;

to assign a first host address to a first virtual object, the first virtual object being a logical drive partition to represent an aggregation of storage capabilities of a plurality of storage devices,

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

to receive an information packet via the network interface, the information packet to have a control portion that includes the first host address; and

to provide via the first virtual object a device-level request to a first storage device of the plurality of storage devices based on the information packet.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the first virtual object comprises an application, a program, a task, a thread, a function, and/or a device driver.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the first host address comprises an IPv4 or an IPv6 address.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising:

a target device interface that provides the apparatus access to the first storage device.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, 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.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the target device interface comprises a homogenous interface.

15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the target device interface comprises a heterogenous interface.

16. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the packet processor is further configured to route the information packet to the first virtual object via a virtual bus tunnel.

17. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the plurality of storage devices comprise a plurality of disk drives and the logical drive partition is associated with a multicast group of physical partitions distributed over the plurality of disk drives.

18. One or more non-transitory machine-readable media having instructions stored thereon that, if executed, provide:

an operating system to receive a plurality of calls from an 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

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 objects of a networked device, and

the first virtual object is a logical drive partition that represents an aggregation of storage capabilities of a plurality of storage devices; and

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

19. The one or more non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 18, wherein the second virtual object represents an aggregation of capabilities of a plurality of physical device elements.

20. The one or more non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 18, wherein the first virtual object is associated with a first storage partition and the second virtual object is associated with a second storage partition.

21. The one or more non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 18, wherein the transform module is configured to generate the first information packet with a split identifier including the first host address and a logical block address.