VIRTUAL TARGET PORT AGGREGATION

• US 20170338977A1
• Filed: 11/20/2014
• Published: 11/23/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/20/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Dhanadevan, Komateswar, Nadarajah, Navaruparajah, Nadubail, Rajesh, Basavarajappa, Harsha, George, Renjith P
• Granted Patent: US 10,348,519 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4022 using switching circuits, e.g. switching matrix, connection or expansion network G06F13/4009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/6421 Medium of transmission, e.g. fibre, cable, radio, satellite
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/6443 Network Node Interface, e.g. Routing, Path finding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/6467 Information loss recovery, e.g. error correction, prediction

Abstract

Approaches for aggregating ports of switch connected to ports of a target node, are described. In one example, for a fibre channel exchange received from a host node, for a target node a plurality of target node ports of the target node associated with the virtual port are determined. The fibre channel exchange comprises a sequence of frame. Once the plurality of target node ports are determined, a first frame is directed to one target node port selected from the plurality of the target node ports, where the one target node port is selected based port selection criteria. Based on the directing of the first frame, subsequent frames of the fibre channel exchange to the selected one target node port are also directed.

Claims

1. A fibre channel based switching system comprising:

a processor;

a virtual port aggregator coupled to the processor, wherein the virtual port aggregator is to;

for one fibre channel (FC) exchange received by the fibre channel based switching system and for a target node, identify a plurality of target node ports corresponding to the target node, wherein the FC exchange further comprises a sequence of frames;

create a virtual port associated with a virtual port identifier; and

associate the virtual port and the target node ports by associating the virtual port identifier with port identifiers of each of the plurality of target node ports; and

a switching module coupled to the processor, wherein the switching module is to;

transmit each frame within the sequence of frames corresponding to the fibre channel exchange to one target node port selected from among the plurality of the target node ports.

2. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the switching module is to provide another sequence of frames corresponding to another fibre channel exchange to another target node port, wherein the another target node port is selected from among the plurality of the target node ports.

3. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein for communicating the frames to one of plurality of target node ports, the switching module is to:

determine the plurality of the target node ports associated with the virtual port;

select the one target node port from among the plurality of the target node ports based on a port selection criteria; and

provide the frames to the selected one target node port.

4. The system as claimed in claim 3, wherein the port selection criteria is a predefined load balancing policy.

5. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the virtual port aggregator is to:

generate a virtual receiver identifier for a first frame based on an identifier associated with the selected one target node port;

communicate the virtual receiver identifier to a host node from which the fibre channel exchange was received; and

receive subsequent frames from the host node with the receiver identifier set as the virtual receiver identifier.

6. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the target node is an array of storage devices.

7. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the fibre channel exchange includes Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) based commands.

8. A method comprising:

receiving a fibre channel exchange from a host node for a target node, wherein the fibre channel exchange comprises a plurality of frames directed to a virtual port;

determining a plurality of target node ports of the target node associated with the virtual port;

directing a first frame from among the plurality of frames to a target node port selected from the plurality of the target node ports; and

further directing subsequent frames of the fibre channel exchange to the selected target node port, based on the directing of the first frame.

9. The method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the determining is based on registering of the target node ports, the registering comprising:

identifying the plurality of target node ports associated with the target node;

receiving a login request from each of the plurality of the target node ports, wherein the login request includes at least an identifier associated with the target node port;

registering each of the plurality of target node ports based on each of the associated target node port with a name server database; and

mapping the identifiers of the target node ports with an identifier of virtual port.

10. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the name server database is a Simple Name Server (SNS).

11. The method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the further directing the subsequent frames comprises:

determining a formal receiver identifier based on directing the first frame to the one target node port, wherein the receiver identifier is based on the identifier of the target node port;

based on the formal receiver identifier, generating a virtual receiver identifier;

providing the virtual receiver identifier to the host node; and

setting the receiver identifier of the subsequent frames to the virtual receiver identifier.

12. The method as claimed in claim 11, wherein the further directing the subsequent frames comprises:

receiving the subsequent frames from the host node, wherein the subsequent frames are associated with the virtual receiver identifier;

modifying the virtual receiver identifier back to the formal receiver identifier;

determining the one target node port based on the formal receiver identifier; and

transmitting the subsequent frames to the one target node port.

13. The method as claimed in claim 8, the method further comprising:

generating an error message in the event a link to the one target node port is down; and

directing the fibre channel exchange over another target node port, selected from among the plurality of target node port.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions executable by a processing resource to:

for a fibre channel exchange received from a host node for a target node, wherein the fibre channel exchange further comprises a plurality of frames directed to a virtual port, determine a plurality of target node ports of the target node associated with the virtual port;

direct a first frame from among the plurality of frames to one target node port selected from the plurality of the target node ports, wherein the one target node port is selected based port selection criteria; and

further directing subsequent frames of the fibre channel exchange to the selected one target node port.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the instructions are executable by the processing resource to determine the plurality of target node ports of the target node associated with the virtual port based on a mapping between the port identifiers associated with the plurality of target node ports and the identifier of the virtual port.