Combined network and application processing in a multiprocessing environment

• US 8,566,833 B1
• Filed: 03/11/2008
• Issued: 10/22/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Biswas, Anumita, Singh, Vijay, Son, Sonny, Berryman, Bill, Noveck, Dave, Shah, Peter, Goldschmidt, Jason
• Primary Examiner(s): LI, AIMEE J
• Application Number:
  US12/045,991
• Time in Patent Office: 2,051 Days
• Field of Search: 718/102, 718/104, 709/213, 709/226, 711/147
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5017 Task decomposition
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5018 Thread allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/00 Packet switching elements

Abstract

According to a novel mechanism, each processing device (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU) in a multi-processor system) is assigned to process a single execution thread for a task and the execution thread is processed across various layers of the multi-processor system (such as a network layer and application layer) without being divided into separate threads. Advantageously, upon initialization of the multi-processor system, network context data structures are created equal to the number of processing devices in the system. As used herein, a network context is a logical entity to which zero or more connections are bound during their lifetime. Rather than sharing data structures among execution threads, a multi-processor system allocates memory resources per each network context during initialization of the system. As a result, an execution thread processing a task queued to a particular network context accesses memory resources allocated for that network context only.

Claims

1. A method for processing tasks of a protocol stack on a multi-processor system, comprising:

creating, at initialization of the multi-processor system, a number of network context data structures equal to a number of processing devices;

allocating a memory resource for each network context so that an execution thread queued to a particular network context accesses the memory resource allocated for the particular network context, the execution thread associated with a network connection data structure representing one or more transport layer connections queued to the particular network context, the memory resource allocated for the particular network context represents the network connection data structure, the network connection data structure comprising a transport layer connection table, wherein each entry in the transport layer connection table references a process control block data structure (PCB), wherein each PCB associated with a transport layer connection is accessed by the execution thread processing a task queued to the particular network context; and

assigning a single processing device of the number of processing devices in the multi-processor system to process the execution thread using the memory resource and processing of the execution thread across layers of the protocol stack, thereby not requiring a lock of the memory resource.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by a network layer, a data packet to perform the task,

determining a network context ID to queue the data packet, the context ID determined using information indicated in the data packet, the information selected from a group consisting of a source address, a source port, a destination address, a destination port, and combinations thereof;

performing network processing of the data packet using the memory resource, the memory resource associated with the network context ID;

providing, by the network layer, to an application layer, the network context ID and the memory resource associated with the network context ID to further process the data packet; and

processing, by the application layer, the data packet using data structures associated with the network context so that the task is executed by the single processing device, the application layer comprising a protocol chosen from a group consisting of HTTP, NFS, CIFS, RDMA over TCP/IP, and iSCSI.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory resource allocated for the particular network context represents a message instructing a file system to access a file, the message processed by the task queued to the particular network context.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory resource allocated for the particular network context represents a data structure for holding a data packet, the packet processed by the task queued to the particular network context.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory resource allocated for the particular network context represents a counter data structure that indicates a number of processed I/O requests for the particular network context.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing memory resources for network contexts in sub-regions of memory of the multi-processor system such that each memory sub-region maintains memory resources corresponding to the particular network context.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the execution thread across layers comprises processing the execution thread across a network layer configured to perform network processing of the task and an application layer configured to perform application services.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the execution thread is processed by one processing device of the number of processing devices across layers of the protocol stack so that the processing of the thread is not divided among two or more processing devices in the multi-processor system.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a network context identification (ID) to an application layer of the multi-processor system while processing the execution thread so that the thread is processed at the application layer in the particular network context by using resources allocated to the particular network context identified by the network context ID, wherein the context ID identifies the particular network layer connection, wherein context ID is determined using information indicated in a data packet, the information selected from a group consisting of a source address, a source port, a destination address, a destination port, and combinations thereof.

10. A method for processing tasks of a protocol stack on a multi-processor system, comprising:

maintaining a number of network context data structures equal to a number of processing devices that process one or more tasks assigned to a particular network context;

maintaining memory resources for each network context so that a single execution thread that process a first task queued to a first network context accesses a memory resource allocated for the first network context, the memory resource represents a network connection data structure, the network connection data structure comprising a transport layer connection table, wherein each entry in the transport layer connection table references a process control block data structure (PCB), wherein each PCB associated with a transport layer connection is accessed by the execution thread processing a task queued to the particular network context; and

processing, by a single processing device of the number of processing devices, the single execution thread for the first task using the memory resources for the first network context and processing the single execution thread for the first task across a network layer and an application layer of the multi-processor system, wherein each network context is associated with a transport layer connection for a lifetime of the connection.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising storing the memory resources for the first network context in a sub-region of memory of the multi-processor systems such that each memory sub-region maintains the memory resources corresponding to a single network context.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein processing the single execution thread does not lock the memory resources.

13. A system for processing tasks of a protocol stack, the system comprising:

a plurality of network context data structures maintained in a memory, equal to a number of processing devices for processing tasks assigned to a particular network context;

a plurality of memory resources, each resource associated with a network context so that a single execution thread processing a task queued to a particular network context accesses memory resources allocated for that network context, the protocol stack comprising a transport layer and an application layer, each network context associated with a transport layer connection for a lifetime of that connection;

two or more processing devices for processing tasks assigned to the particular network context, each processing device assigned to process a single execution thread for a task using the allocated memory resources, wherein a memory resource of the plurality of memory resources allocated for the particular network context represents a transport control protocol (TCP) data structure accessed by the single execution thread processing tasks queued to the particular network context, wherein the TCP data structure represents an array of indexes, each index corresponding to a linked list of one or more process control blocks (PCB) storing data about processing the task; and

processing the execution thread for the task across layers of the protocol stack, whereby the processing is performed without requiring to lock the allocated memory resources.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein a memory resource of the plurality of memory resources allocated for the particular network context represent a message data structure for passing data to and from a file system to process the task queued to the particular network context.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein a memory resource of the plurality of memory resources allocated for the particular network context represents a data structure for holding a data packet including the task queued to the particular network context, the particular network context is determined using information indicated in the data packet, the information selected from a group consisting of a source address, a source port, a destination address, a destination port, and combinations thereof.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising:

one or more network drivers configured to receive one or more data packets over a network to process the task and to forward the data packet to a classifier module; and

the classifier module configured to distribute the received data packets among one or more of the network contexts and to queue the data packets to the one or more network contexts for processing.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein a memory resource of the plurality of memory resources allocated for the particular network context represents a counter data structure that indicates a number of processed I/O requests for the particular network context.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the plurality of memory resources are maintained in sub-regions of the memory such that each memory sub-region is associated with a corresponding network context.