Reliability for interconnect fabrics

• US 7,032,013 B2
• Filed: 12/19/2001
• Issued: 04/18/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Wilkes, John, Ward, Julie Ann, Shahoumian, Troy Alexander
• Primary Examiner(s): VU, THONG H
• Application Number:
  US10/027,589
• Publication Number:
  US 20020091845A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,581 Days
• Field of Search: 709/238, 709/242, 709/232, 709/249, 709/247, 709/227, 709/220, 709/221, 709/252, 709/228, 710/317, 710/305, 710/104, 710/14, 370/360, 370/403, 370/397, 370/537, 370/401, 714/738, 714/47, 707/200, 718/105, 717/173, 717/11, 711/121, 713 1- 5, 340/825
• US Class Current: 709/220
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/10 characterised by the switching fabric construction

Abstract

A technique for providing reliability to an interconnect fabric for communication among a set of nodes. Ports associated with each node are partitioned into a first set of ports and a second set of ports. A first interconnect fabric is formed among the first set of ports for each node in response to a set of flow requirements. A second interconnect fabric is formed among the second set of ports. Reliability is enhanced because, in the event of a failure of any single element of the first interconnect fabric, the flows among the nodes can still be achieved by the second interconnect fabric.

Claims

1. A method of providing reliability to an interconnect fabric for communication among a set of nodes, the method comprising:

partitioning ports associated with each node into a first set of ports and a second set of ports, the first set of ports comprising at least one port of each node and the second set of ports comprising at least one other port of each node;

forming a first interconnect fabric among the first set of ports for meeting a set of flow requirements, the set of flow requirements specifying communication bandwidth requirements between pairs of the nodes and the first interconnect fabric comprising a plurality of communication links and at least one interconnect device coupled to three or more of the communication links; and

forming a second interconnect fabric among the second set of ports.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said forming the first interconnect fabric comprises generating arrangements of flow sets in response to the flow requirements, determining one or more port violations with respect to the first set of ports for each node and alleviating at least one of the port violations by merging a pair of the flow sets.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein said set of nodes includes source nodes and terminal nodes.

4. The method according to claim 1, said partitioning further comprising partitioning the ports associated with each node into a number of additional sets of ports.

5. The method according to claim 4, further comprising forming additional interconnect fabrics among the additional sets of ports.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein said forming said second interconnect fabric is performed to meet the set of flow requirements.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein said forming said second interconnect fabric is performed to meet a relaxed set of flow requirements.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the relaxed set of flow requirements for the second interconnect fabric comprise reduced bandwidth requirements between pairs of the nodes, the reduced bandwidth requirements being a percentage of the bandwidth requirements between the pairs for the nodes for the first interconnect fabric.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein a node has an odd number of ports equal to 2n+1, the first set of ports includes n+1 ports and the second set of ports includes n ports.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein when a node has only one port, further comprising a step of coupling an interconnect device to the port.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the second set of ports includes fewer ports of at least one node than the first set of ports.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the second interconnect fabric comprises a plurality of second communication links and at least one interconnect device coupled to three or more of the second communication links.

13. A system for providing reliability to a design for an interconnect fabric for communication among a set of nodes, the system comprising:

means for storing a set of design information including a set of flow requirements for the interconnect fabric, the set of flow requirements specifying communication bandwidth requirements between pairs of the nodes; and

a fabric design tool that partitions ports associated with each node into a first set of ports and a second set of ports, the first set of ports comprising at least one port of each node and the second set of ports comprising at least one other port of each node and that generates a first design for the interconnect fabric among the first set of ports, the first design for meeting the flow requirements and the first design specifying a plurality of communication links and at least one interconnect device coupled to three or more of the communication links, and that generates a second design for the interconnect fabric among the second set of ports.

14. The system according to claim 13, wherein said fabric design tool generates arrangements of flow sets in response to the flow requirements, determines one or more port violations with respect to the first set of ports for each node and alleviates at least one of the port violations by merging a pair of the flow sets.

15. The system according to claim 13, wherein said set of nodes includes source nodes and terminal nodes.

16. The system according to claim 13, wherein said fabric design tool further partitions the ports associated with each node into a number of additional sets of ports.

17. The system according to claim 16, wherein said fabric design tool forms additional interconnect fabrics among the additional sets of ports.

18. The system according to claim 13, wherein said fabric design tool forms said second interconnect fabric to meet the set of flow requirements.

19. The system according to claim 13, wherein said fabric design tool forms said second interconnect fabric to meet a relaxed set of flow requirements.

20. The system according to claim 19, wherein the relaxed set of flow requirements for the second interconnect fabric comprise reduced bandwidth requirements between pairs of the nodes, the reduced bandwidth requirements being a percentage of the bandwidth requirements between the pairs for the nodes for the first interconnect fabric.

21. The system according to claim 13, wherein node has an odd number of ports equal to 2n+1, the first set of ports includes n+1 ports of the node and the second set of ports includes n ports of the node.

22. The system according to claim 13, wherein when a node has only one port, an interconnect device coupled to the port is added to the design prior to the fabric design tool partitioning the ports into the first set of ports and the second set of ports.

23. The system according to claim 13, wherein the second set of ports includes fewer ports of at least one node than the first set of ports.

24. The system according to claim 13, wherein the second design for the interconnect fabric specifies a plurality of second communication links and at least one interconnect device coupled to three or more of the second communication links.