Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/ – Input/output data processing – Input/output access regulation
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-19
2001-12-18
Lee, Thomas (Department: 2182)
Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/
Input/output data processing
Input/output access regulation
C710S005000, C710S033000, C710S120000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06332171
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF INVENTION
The subject of the present invention in general pertains to a new Input-Output facility design that exploits high bandwidth integrated network adapters.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In a network computing environment, multitudes of commands and requests for retrieval and storage of data are processed every second. To properly address the complexity of routing these commands and requests, environments with servers have traditionally offered integrated network connectivity to allow direct attachments of clients such as Local Area Networks (LANs). Given the size of most servers, the number of clients usually is in the range of hundreds to thousands and the bandwidth required in the 10-100 Mbits/sec range. However, in recent years the servers have grown and the amount of data they are required to handle has grown with them. As a result, the existing I/O architectures need to be modified to support this order of magnitude increase in the bandwidth.
In addition, new Internet applications have increased the demand for improved latency. The adapters must support a larger number of users and connections to consolidate the network interfaces which are visible externally. The combination of all the above requirements presents a unique challenge to server I/O subsystems.
Furthermore, in large environments such as International Business Machines Enterprise System Architecture/390 (Enterprise System Architecture/390 is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation), there are additional requirements that the I/O subsystem must remain consistent with existing support. Applications must continue to run unmodified, and error recovery and dynamic configuration must be preserved or even improved. Sharing of I/O resources must be enabled as well as the integrity of the data being sent or received. This presents new and complex challenges that need to be resolved.
In order to achieve bandwidths which are dramatically higher and still achieve other required challenges, a new system architecture is needed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A queuing method and apparatus for receipt and transfer of incoming and outgoing data inn a network environment having a main storage. The mechanism includes at least one set of dedicated input queues and at least another set of dedicated output queues. In addition a plurality of queuing components is also provided that include attributes of devices to and from which data is to be transferred or received, and information about the queuing mechanism itself. The input and output queues also comprise an information block containing address of all input and output queues, a storage information block providing information about the queuing mechanism and storage list information blocks that defined for each queue containing specific information about that queue itself. In addition, the input and output queue sets include storage lists for identifying any input-output buffer(s) associated with each queue-set and a storage block address list for providing information about storage locations of any input-output buffer.
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Baskey Michael E.
Brice Frank W.
Glassen Steven G.
Hefferon Eugene P.
Ratcliff Bruce H.
Du Thuan
Gonzalez Floyd A.
International Business Machines - Corporation
Lee Thomas
Neff Lily
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