REPORTING OF PARTIALLY PERFORMED MEMORY MOVE

• US 20090198936A1
• Filed: 02/01/2008
• Published: 08/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Blackmore, Robert S., Xue, Hanhong, Arimilli, Ravi K., Kim, Chulho, Sinharoy, Balaram, Kalla, Ronald N.
• Granted Patent: US 8,356,151 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/165
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0831 using a bus scheme, e.g. with bus monitoring or watching means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0862 with prefetch
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1027 using associative or pseudo-associative address translation means, e.g. translation look-aside buffer [TLB]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30043 LOAD or STORE instructions; Clear instruction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30047 Prefetch instructions; cache control instructions

Abstract

A method performed in a data processing system initiates an asynchronous memory move (AMM) operation, whereby a processor performs a move of data in virtual address space from a first effective address to a second effective address and forwards parameters of the AMM operation to asynchronous memory mover logic for completion of the physical movement of data from a first memory location to a second memory location. The processor executes a second operation, which checks a status of the completion of the data move and returns a notification indicating the status. The notification indicates a status, which includes one of: data move in progress; data move totally done; data move partially done; data move cannot be performed; and occurrence of a translation look-aside buffer invalidate entry (TLBIE) operation. The processor initiates one or more actions in response to the notification received.

Claims

1. In a data processing system having a processor and a memory, a method comprising:

initiating an asynchronous memory move operation, wherein the processor performs an effective address move of data from a first effective address to a second effective address and forwards parameters of the AMM operation to asynchronous memory mover logic for completion of the movement of data (data move) from a first memory location to a second memory location;

executing a second operation, which checks a status of the completion of the data move to the second memory location and returns a notification indicating the status;

receiving the notification in response to the status check, wherein the notification indicates at least one of the following statuses;

data move in progress;

data move totally done;

data move partially done and paused/stopped;

data move cannot be performed; and

occurrence of a translation look-aside buffer invalidate entry (TLBIE) operation; and

initiating one or more actions based on the notification received in response to the status check.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to the notification indicating the data move is partially done, parsing the notification for information indicating a point at which the data move stopped/paused and a condition which caused the data move stopped/paused; and

in response to the condition being a temporary condition;

monitoring the condition; and

triggering a resumption of the data move from the point at which the data move stopped/pause, when the condition is resolved.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

in response to the notification indicating a partially done state due to a page crossing (page fault), stopping the AMM operation and signaling the processor that the AMM operation caused a page fault error;

in response to the notification indicating a partially done state due to a lack of sufficient resources, resuming the data move when the resources become available;

in response to the notification indicating a partially done state due to a non-fatal error condition, retrying the data move at least once before signaling the processor of the error condition; and

in response to the notification indicating the data move cannot make forward progress, resuming the data move after a pre-set time elapses.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification indicates the data move cannot be performed when a condition occurs form among:

(a) at least one of a source address corresponding to the first memory location and a destination address corresponding to the destination location has an address conflict;

(b) the data is unaligned with the pages of the memory location; and

(c) the occurrence of the TLBIE.

5. A data processing system comprising:

a memory;

a processor;

asynchronous memory mover logic; and

processing logic associated with at least one of the processor and asynchronous memory mover logic for;

initiating an asynchronous memory move operation, wherein the processor performs an effective address move of data from a first effective address to a second effective address and forwards parameters of the AMM operation to asynchronous memory mover logic for completion of the movement of data.(data move) from a first memory location to a second memory location;

executing a second operation, which checks a status of the completion of the data move to the second memory location and returns a notification indicating the status;

receiving the notification in response to the status check, wherein the notification indicates at least one of the following statuses;

data move in progress;

data move totally done;

data move partially done and paused/stopped;

data move cannot be performed; and

occurrence of a translation look-aside buffer invalidate entry (TLBIE) operation; and

initiating one or more actions based on the notification received in response to the status check.

6. The data processing system of claim 5, wherein the processing logic further comprises logic for:

in response to the notification indicating the data move is partially done, parsing the notification for information indicating a point at which the data move stopped/paused and a condition which caused the data move stopped/paused; and

in response to the condition being a temporary condition;

monitoring the condition; and

triggering a resumption of the data move from the point at which the data move stopped/pause, when the condition is resolved.

8. The data processing system of claim 6, wherein the notification indicates the data move cannot be performed when a condition occurs form among:

(a) at least one of a source address corresponding to the first memory location and a destination address corresponding to the destination location has an address conflict;

(b) the data is unaligned with the pages of the memory location; and

(c) the occurrence of the TLBIE.

7. The data processing system of claim 62, wherein said processing logic further comprises logic for:

in response to the notification indicating a partially done state due to a page crossing (page fault), stopping the AMM operation and signaling the processor that the AMM operation caused a page fault error;

in response to the notification indicating a partially done state due to a lack of sufficient resources, resuming the data move when the resources become available;

in response to the notification indicating a partially done state due to a non-fatal error condition, retrying the data move at least once before signaling the processor of the error condition; and

in response to the notification indicating the data move cannot make forward progress, resuming the data move after a pre-set time elapses.

9. A computer program product comprising:

a computer readable medium; and

program code on the computer readable medium that when executed within a processing system having a processor and a memory and asynchronous memory mover logic, said program code enables the functions of;

initiating an asynchronous memory move operation, wherein the processor performs an effective address move of data from a first effective address to a second effective address and forwards parameters of the AMM operation to asynchronous memory mover logic for completion of the movement of data (data move) from a first memory location to a second memory location;

executing a second operation, which checks a status of the completion of the data move to the second memory location and returns a notification indicating the status;

receiving the notification in response to the status check, wherein the notification indicates at least one of the following statuses;

data move in progress;

data move totally done;

data move partially done and paused/stopped;

data move cannot be performed; and

occurrence of a translation look-aside buffer invalidate entry (TLBIE) operation; and

initiating one or more actions based on the notification received in response to the status check.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, further comprising program code for:

in response to the notification indicating the data move is partially done, parsing the notification for information indicating a point at which the data move stopped/paused and a condition which caused the data move stopped/paused; and

in response to the condition being a temporary condition;

monitoring the condition; and

triggering a resumption of the data move from the point at which the data move stopped/pause, when the condition is resolved.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, further comprising program code for:

in response to the notification indicating a partially done state due to a page crossing (page fault), stopping the AMM operation and signaling the processor that the AMM operation caused a page fault error;

in response to the notification indicating a partially done state due to a lack of sufficient resources, resuming the data move when the resources become available;

in response to the notification indicating a partially done state due to a non-fatal error condition, retrying the data move at least once before signaling the processor of the error condition; and

in response to the notification indicating the data move cannot make forward progress, resuming the data move after a pre-set time elapses.

12. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the notification indicates the data move cannot be performed when a condition occurs form among:

(a) at least one of a source address corresponding to the first memory location and a destination address corresponding to the destination location has an address conflict;

(b) the data is unaligned with the pages of the memory location; and

(c) the occurrence of the TLBIE.