Hybrid transport—application network fabric apparatus

• US 8,862,706 B2
• Filed: 08/03/2010
• Issued: 10/14/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nant Holdings IP, LLC (NantWorks, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Nant Holdings IP, LLC (NantWorks, LLC)
• Inventors: Wittenschlaeger, Thomas
• Primary Examiner(s): Dharia, Rupal
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ma, Wing
• Application Number:
  US12/849,521
• Publication Number:
  US 20100312913A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,533 Days
• Field of Search: 709/213, 709/244, 709/221, 709/238, 370/400
• US Class Current: 709/221
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0823 characterised by the purposes of a change of settings, e.g. optimising configuration for enhancing reliability for optimising operational conditions of wireless networks H04W24/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery

Abstract

A hybrid routing—application network fabric apparatus is presented where a fabric apparatus has multiple apparatus components or resources that can be dedicated to one or more application topologies. The apparatus can receive a topology image definition file describing an application topology and the apparatus can dedicate its local components for use with the application topology. The apparatus can dedicate general purpose processing cores, dedicated routing cores, data channels, networking ports, memory or other local resources to the application topology. Contemplated application topologies include routing topologies, computation topologies, database topologies, storage topologies, or other types of application topologies. Furthermore, application topologies can be optimized by modeling or simulating the topologies on a network fabric.

Claims

1. A hybrid routing—

computation fabric apparatus, the apparatus comprising;

a plurality of general purpose processing cores;

a plurality of dedicated routing cores communicatively coupled with the plurality processor cores via internal data channels;

a plurality of externally facing networking ports communicatively and selectively coupled with the routing cores where any one routing core is configured to exchange data with remote devices via any one of the networking ports;

a topology manager configured to coordinate a routing topology and an application topology among a plurality of other fungible hybrid routing—

computation fabric apparatus by dedicating the plurality of general purpose processing cores, the plurality of routing cores, and the plurality of networking ports to the routing topology and application topology according to a topology image, wherein dedicating the plurality of general purpose processing cores, the plurality of routing cores, and the plurality of networking ports comprises dedicating a first general purpose processor, a first routing core, and a first external port to the application topology, and dedicating a second routing core, a second external port, and a third external port to the routing topology; and

an optimizing agent configured to track performance metrics associated with at least one of the routing topology and application topology and estimate an efficiency of performance with respect to at least one of the performance metrics based on a reconfiguration of general purposes processing cores, routing cores, and networking ports dedicated to the routing topology and application topology,

wherein the topology manager is further configured to reconfigure the dedicated general purposes processing cores, routing cores, and networking ports according to the reconfiguration upon the estimated efficiency satisfying efficiency criteria.

2. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a chip format factor package in which the general purpose cores and routing cores are disposed within the chip package.

3. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus is one fungible member of a networking fabric comprising a plurality of other fungible member hybrid routing—

computation fabric apparatus.

4. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a multi-core processor in which is disposed the plurality of general purpose cores.

5. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, wherein the external networking ports comprise optical connections.

6. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, wherein the topology image comprises sufficient information describing a whole topology across multiple fungible hybrid routing—

computation fabric apparatus.

7. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, wherein topology image comprises a routing topology image, and where the second routing core, and the at least two external ports are selected by the topology manager as the apparatus components supporting the routing topology based on the routing image.

8. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, wherein topology image comprises an application topology image, and where the first processing core, the first routing core, and the first port are selected by the topology manager as the apparatus components supporting the computational topology based on the application image.

9. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, wherein the internal data channels comprise a plurality of selectable internal data channels communicatively coupling the general purpose cores with the routing cores, where any one of the general purpose cores can exchange data with any one of the routing cores via at least one of the selectable internal data channels.

10. The fabric apparatus of claim 9, further comprising at least a one-to-one correspondence between the selectable internal data channels and routing cores.

11. The fabric apparatus of claim 9, wherein the topology manager is further configured to dedicate at least one of the selectable internal data channels to the application topology.

12. The fabric apparatus of claim 9, further comprising at least three selectable internal data channels.

13. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, wherein the application topology is selected from the group consisting of the following topologies:

a storage topology, a simulation topology, and a modeling topology.

14. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, wherein a second general purpose processor composes one of the plurality of other fungible hybrid routing—

computation fabric apparatus, and wherein the first general purpose processor and the second general purpose processor are configured to collectively operate on data in support of an application operating on the application topology.

15. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, wherein the topology manager is further configured to coordinate a storage topology with the plurality of other fungible hybrid routing—

computation fabric apparatus by dedicating a third routing core, a fourth external port, and a fifth external port to the storage topology, wherein the third routing core is configured to monitor storage packets as they traverse between the fourth and fifth external ports.

16. The fabric apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first external port routes to a first remote device, the second external port routes to a second remote device, and the third external port routes to a third remote device, wherein the first remote device is different from the second remote device and the third remote device.