Apparatus and method for dynamic communication scheduling of virtualized device traffic based on changing available bandwidth

• US 9,397,944 B1
• Filed: 07/26/2013
• Issued: 07/19/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Teradici Corporation (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Teradici Corporation (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Yang, Haw-Yuan, Hobbs, David Victor, Main, Ian Cameron
• Primary Examiner(s): Ghaffari, Abu
• Application Number:
  US13/952,270
• Time in Patent Office: 1,089 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/28 using burst mode transfer, e.g. direct memory access DMA, cycle steal G06F13/32 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/385 for adaptation of a particular data processing system to different peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/387 for adaptation of different data processing systems to different peripheral devices, e.g. protocol converters for incompatible systems, open system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/00 Traffic control in data switching networks arrangements for detecting or preventing errors in the information received H04L1/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/522 Dynamic queue service slot or variable bandwidth allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols

Abstract

In one embodiment a method for communicating data comprises receiving, by a traffic manager between a plurality of virtual machines (VMs) and a network interface, (a) first data from a first VM in the plurality of VMs and en route via a first client computer to a first device, and (b) second data from a second VM in the plurality of VMs and en route via a second client computer to a second device; determining first attributes of the first data that provide a first communication requirement; determining second attributes of the second data that provide a second communication requirement; determining, based on available bandwidth of the network interface, a communications schedule associated with cumulative bandwidth of the first and second communication requirements; and transmitting, according to the communications schedule, the first data to the first client computer and the second data to the second client computer.

Claims

1. A method for communicating media data, comprising:

receiving, by a traffic manager coupled between a plurality of virtual machines (VMs) and an Internet Protocol (IP) network interface, (a) first data from a first VM in the plurality of VMs and en route via a first client computer to a first peripheral device, and (b) second data from a second VM in the plurality of VMs and en route via a second client computer to a second peripheral device;

determining, by the traffic manager, first device dependent attributes of the first data, the first device dependent attributes comprising at least a first device type, a first transfer type information, both related to the first peripheral device, and a first communication requirement for the first data determined by at least the first device type;

determining, by the traffic manager, second device dependent attributes of the second data, the second device dependent attributes comprising at least a second device type, a second transfer type information, both related to the second peripheral device, and a second communication requirement for the second data determined by at least the second device type;

determining, by the traffic manager and based on an available bandwidth of the network interface, a communications schedule associated with a cumulative bandwidth of the first and the second communication requirements;

transmitting, via the IP network interface and according to the communications schedule, the first data, to the first client computer; and

transmitting, via the IP network interface and according to the communications schedule, the second data, to the second client computer, and

wherein the communications schedule is adjusted to delay transmission of the second data responsive to a change in the available bandwidth, when the changed available bandwidth is lower than the cumulative bandwidth of the first and second communication requirements.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the first device dependent attributes comprises extracting the first device dependent attributes from a Universal Serial Bus (USB) Request Block (URB) header of the first data and wherein determining the second device dependent attributes comprises extracting the second device dependent attributes from a URB header of the second data.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first peripheral device is a first Universal Serial Bus (USB) peripheral device type coupled to the first client computer and the second peripheral device is a second USB peripheral device type coupled to the second client computer, the first USB peripheral device type identified as requiring a lower latency data transfer than the second USB peripheral device type.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the communications schedule comprises prioritized transfer of the first data relative to the second data based on identifying the first data as isochronous data and the second data as bulk Universal Serial Bus (USB) transfer data.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first communication requirement is based on identifying the first peripheral device as a Human Interface Device (HID) and the second communication requirement is based on identifying the second peripheral device as a mass storage device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first communication requirement is further based on a first client system profile of the first client computer and the second communication requirement is further based on a second client system profile of the second client computer.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first device dependent attributes comprise a device identification of the first peripheral device and the second device dependent attributes comprise a device identification of the second peripheral device.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first communication requirement is further based on a bandwidth consumption of the first client computer and the second communication requirement is further based on a bandwidth consumption of the second client computer.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying, by the traffic manager, a third communication requirement for third multi-stage transactional data from a VM in the plurality of VMs;

wherein the communications schedule is associated with the cumulative bandwidth including the third communication requirement; and

wherein the communications schedule comprises suspending transmitting the second data until completing a transmission of the third multi-stage transactional data.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein suspending transmitting the second data occurs prior to receiving, by the traffic manager, all of the third multi-stage transactional data based on the traffic manager maintaining multi-stage state information associated with the third communication requirement.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying, by the traffic manager, a third communication requirement for third control data from a VM in the plurality of VMs, the communications schedule associated with the cumulative bandwidth including the third communication requirement;

and wherein the communications schedule comprises transmitting the third control data prior to transmitting any non-control peripheral device data.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the third control data comprises one of management data or security data independent of USB data.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the communications schedule is adjusted to delay at least one of the first data or the second data responsive to a change in the available bandwidth, the changed available bandwidth lower than the cumulative bandwidth including the first, the second and the third communication requirements.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the first data to the first client computer according to the communication schedule comprises one of i) communicating the first data immediately, ii) aggregating the first data with third data from the first VM, the third data associated with the first peripheral device, or iii) aggregating the first data with fourth data from the first VM, the fourth data associated with the first client computer.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the traffic manager comprises one of (i) software functions executed by a central processing unit (CPU) or (ii) an independent logic circuit implemented as one of (A) a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or (B) an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).

16. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the communication schedule further comprises applying backpressure to at least one of a first device driver associated with the first peripheral device or a second device driver associated with the second peripheral device.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the communication schedule further comprises queuing a transfer request associated with the second data according to a transfer priority objective.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the communication schedule further comprises queuing a transfer request associated with the second data according to the second device dependent attributes of a Universal Serial Bus (USB) transfer type, the USB transfer type comprising one of isochronous, bulk or control transfer types.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein each VM of the plurality of VMs comprises an isolated user environment operating on a host computer.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the traffic manager receives the first data before the second data and determining the communication schedule comprises delaying transmitting the first data until after transmitting the second data.