Composed computing systems with converged and disaggregated component pool

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11265219-B2
Application number	US-202016858045-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 24, 2020
Priority date	Apr 25, 2019
Publication date	Mar 1, 2022
Grant date	Mar 1, 2022

Abstract

Deployment of arrangements of physical computing components coupled over a communication fabric are presented herein. In one example, a method includes detecting disaggregated computing components communicatively coupled to at least a first communication fabric, and detecting converged computing components communicatively coupled to a second communication fabric. The method includes forming a free pool of computing components comprising the disaggregated computing components and the converged computing components, and receiving user commands to form compute units from among computing components included in the free pool of computing components. Based at least on the user commands, the method includes forming the compute units for use by one or more users.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
detecting disaggregated computing components communicatively coupled to at least a first communication fabric, wherein the disaggregated computing components comprise computing components that are arbitrarily and individually segregable into logical groupings within the first communication fabric;
detecting converged computing components communicatively coupled to a second communication fabric, wherein the converged computing components comprise sets of computing components having fixed relationships to associated processors;
forming a free pool of computing components comprising the disaggregated computing components and the converged computing components;
receiving a user command to form a compute unit from among computing components included in the free pool of computing components; and
based at least on the user command, forming the compute unit to include at least a selected converged computing component and a selected disaggregated computing component, wherein the selected converged computing component is added to the compute unit with a granularity having a fixed set of computing components and the selected disaggregated computing component is added to the compute unit with a granularity of an individual computing component.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the compute unit includes a plurality of selected components from among the disaggregated computing components and the selected converged computing components.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein forming the compute unit comprises establishing one or more logical domains within at least one among the first communication fabric and the second communication fabric that make selected computing components for the compute unit accessible to each other.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
responsive to forming the compute unit that includes at least one disaggregated computing component and at least one converged computing component, individually adding the at least one disaggregated computing component into the compute unit and adding the fixed set of computing components into the compute unit.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the converged computing components correspond to computing assemblies that each include at least a processing component, a data storage component, and a network interface component that couples each computing assembly to the second communication fabric using a network communication protocol; and
wherein the disaggregated computing components correspond to at least individual ones among processing components, data storage components, and network interface components individually coupled to the first communication fabric using a point-to-point communication protocol.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
responsive to forming the compute unit, deploying software for execution by at least a corresponding processor component of the compute unit.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the selected disaggregated computing component is coupled over the first communication fabric and the selected converged computing component is coupled over the second communication fabric; and further comprising:
the software configured to:
instantiate the selected converged computing component into the first compute unit;
assign network addressing for a network interface component included in a computing assembly that also includes the selected converged computing component; and
direct traffic for the selected converged computing component through the network interface component to at least the selected disaggregated computing component over the second communication fabric;
wherein the selected disaggregated computing component receives the traffic over the first communication fabric, and wherein the first communication fabric comprises a first communication fabric type different than a second communication fabric type of the second communication fabric.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
performing a discovery process over the first communication fabric and the second communication fabric to identify first computing components as disaggregated computing components and identify second computing components as converged computing components; and
for the converged computing components, determining sets among the converged computing components that share a chassis;
maintaining one or more data structures which indicates a communication fabric type for each of the first computing components and each of the second computing components and indicates the sets among the converged computing components that share corresponding chassis.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first communication fabric comprises a first communication fabric type corresponding to communication protocols from at least one among Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe), Gen-Z, and Compute Express Link (CXL), and wherein the second communication fabric comprises a second communication fabric type corresponding to at least one among Ethernet and InfiniBand, and FibreChannel.

10. An apparatus, comprising:
one or more computer readable storage media;
and
program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, executable by a processing system to direct the processing system to at least:
detect disaggregated computing components communicatively coupled to at least a first communication fabric, wherein the disaggregated computing components comprise computing components that are arbitrarily and individually segregable into logical groupings within the first communication fabric;
detect converged computing components communicatively coupled to a second communication fabric, wherein the converged computing components comprise sets of computing components having fixed relationships to associated processors;
form a free pool of computing components comprising the disaggregated computing components and the converged computing components;
receive a user command to form a compute unit from among computing components included in the free pool of computing components; and
based at least on the user command, form the compute unit to include at least a selected converged computing component and a selected disaggregated computing component, wherein the selected converged computing component is added to the compute unit with a granularity having a fixed set of computing components and the selected disaggregated computing component is added to the compute unit with a granularity of an individual computing component.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the compute unit includes a plurality of selected components from among the disaggregated computing components and the selected converged computing components, and wherein forming the compute units comprises establishing one or more logical domains within at least one among the first communication fabric and the second communication fabric that group selected computing components to each compute unit.

12. The apparatus of claim 10 , comprising further program instructions executable by the processing system to direct the processing system to at least:
responsive to forming the compute unit that includes at least one disaggregated computing component and at least one converged computing component, individually add the at least one disaggregated computing component into the compute unit and add the fixed set of computing components into the compute unit.

13. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the converged computing components correspond to computing assemblies that each include at least a processing component, a data storage component, and a network interface component tha

Assignees

• Liqid Inc

Inventors

• Cannata James Scott
• Clark Phillip
• Nagel Bryan
• Harris Henry Lee
• Schramm Bryan
• Puri Sumit

Classifications

• G06F3/0632

  by initialisation or re-initialisation of storage systems · CPC title

• G06F3/0604

  Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management · CPC title

• G06F3/0689

  Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD · CPC title

• G06F3/0661

  Format or protocol conversion arrangements · CPC title

• H04L69/18

  Multiprotocol handlers, e.g. single devices capable of handling multiple protocols · CPC title