Zero-copy network and file offload for web and application servers

• US 20060294234A1
• Filed: 03/22/2006
• Published: 12/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bakke, Mark A., Thompson, David P., Kuik, Timothy J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,713,180 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/225
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/161 Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/162 involving adaptations of sockets based mechanisms secure socket layer H04L63/168
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/32 Architecture of open systems interconnection [OSI] 7-layer type protocol stacks, e.g. the interfaces between the data link level and the physical level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/326 in the transport layer [OSI layer 4] H04L69/16 takes precedence

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for transferring data from an application server are provided. By offloading network and file system stacks to a common stack accessible by multiple operating systems in a virtual computing system, embodiments of the present invention may achieve data transfer support for web and application servers without the data needing to be copied to or reside in the address space of the server operating systems.

Claims

1. A method for transferring data in response to a command issued from an application server, comprising:

creating an offload stack structure running on one or more processor cores separate from one or more processor cores on which an operating system executing the application server is running, the offload stack structure providing at least network and file stack resources;

providing an interface to share network and file resources of the offload stack between multiple operating systems running on the multi-core system; and

providing zero-copy data transfer support for the application server by processing the command issued from the application server to the offload stack without the need to copy data targeted by the command to address space of the operating system on which the application server is running.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the offload stack provides network, file and block I/O resources.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the command includes at least a source argument to specify a source of data to be transferred and a destination argument to which the data is to be transferred.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the command also includes at least one argument specifying an offset location within a file specified by the source argument from which to start reading.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the source argument is capable of specifying a file or a socket stream.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the interface to share network and file resources of the offload stack between multiple operating systems running on the multi-core system comprises driver code executable by the operating systems.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein creating the offload stack structure comprises creating the offload stack structure on a data path processor separate from any processor on which any of the operating systems are running.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein creating the offload stack structure comprises creating the offload stack structure on a network device coupled to the host device via a network connection.

9. A host system, comprising:

one or more processing cores;

one or more operating systems running on one or more of the processing cores;

an application server running on one of the operating systems; and

an offload stack running on one or more of the processor cores, the offload stack structure providing zero-copy data transfer support for the application server by processing a command issued from the application server without the need to copy data targeted by the command to address space of the operating system on which the application server is running.

10. The host system of claim 9, wherein the application and offload stack are running on different processor cores.

11. The host system of claim 9, wherein the offload stack provides network, file and block I/O resources to the operating systems.

12. The host system of claim 9, wherein the command includes at least a source argument to specify a source of data to be transferred and a destination argument to which the data is to be transferred.

13. The host system of claim 12, wherein the command also includes at least one argument specifying an offset location within a file specified by the source argument from which to start reading.

14. The host system of claim 13, wherein the source argument is capable of specifying a file or a socket stream.

15. The host system of claim 9, wherein the offload stack structure runs on a data path processor separate from any processor on which any of the operating systems are running.

16. A device, comprising:

an interface allowing the device to be coupled to one or more host systems via a network connection; and

an offload stack providing zero-copy data transfer support for an application server running on an operating system of at least one of the host systems by processing a command issued from the application server without the need to copy data targeted by the command to address space of the operating system on which the application server is running.

17. The device of claim 16, wherein the network connection comprises at least one of:

a Data Center Ethernet (DCE) connection and an Infiniband connection.

18. The device of claim 16, wherein the offload stack provides network, file and block I/O resources to the host systems.

19. The device of claim 16, wherein the offload stack provides the application server with zero-copy support to transfer data from a remote file system to a socket connection with a remote client.

20. The device of claim 16, wherein the command includes at least a source argument to specify a source of data to be transferred and a destination argument to which the data is to be transferred.

21. The device of claim 20, wherein the source argument is capable of specifying a file or a socket stream.

22. A system, comprising:

one or more processing means;

server means running on at least one of the one or more processing means; and

offload means running on at least one of the one or more processing means, the offload means providing zero-copy data transfer support for the server means by processing commands issued from the server means without the need to copy data targeted by the commands to address space of an operating system on which the server means is running.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the offload means provides network, file and block I/O resources to the operating systems.

24. The system of claim 22, wherein the offload means runs on processor means separate from any processor means on which the server runs.