System and method for packet encapsulation wherein translation control entries (TCEs) may redirect DMA for software defined networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9577841-B2
Application number	US-201414525604-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 28, 2014
Priority date	Jun 27, 2014
Publication date	Feb 21, 2017
Grant date	Feb 21, 2017

Abstract

A method, system, and computer program product for encapsulating a packet within a virtualized network. The method includes writing one or more first translation control entries (TCEs) from a TCE table of a client system to a TCE table of a host system, and writing one or more second TCEs to the TCE table of the host system. The first TCEs indicate a location within the client system of payload data for the packet, and the second TCEs indicate a location within the host system of at least one of header and footer information to be included with the payload data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of encapsulating a packet for transmission through a virtualized network, the method comprising:
writing one or more first translation control entries (TCEs) from a client TCE table of a client system to a host TCE table of a host system providing at least a portion of computing resources of the client system, wherein the first TCEs indicate a location within the client system of payload data to be included within the packet, wherein the client TCE table corresponds to a virtual input/output (I/O) adapter of the client system and the host TCE table corresponds to a physical I/O adapter of the host system;
writing one or more second TCEs to the host TCE table, wherein the second TCEs indicate a location within the host system of at least one of header and footer information to be included with the payload data within the packet;
writing one or more third TCEs to the host TCE table, wherein the third TCEs indicate a location within the client system for corresponding payload data to be sent when a subsequent encapsulated packet is received; and
writing one or more fourth TCEs to the host TCE table, wherein the fourth TCEs indicate a location within the host system for at least one of corresponding header and footer information to be sent when the subsequent encapsulated packet is received.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first TCEs and the second TCEs are written to the host TCE table in an order for transmission of the packet using the physical I/O adapter onto a physical network.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
generating, based on the payload data, the at least one of header and footer information on the host system.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving the encapsulated packet at the physical I/O adapter of the host system; and
sending payload data included in the encapsulated packet to a virtual I/O adapter of a destination client system having at least a portion of its computing resources provided by the host system.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein writing the one or more first TCEs to the host TCE table is performed by a hypervisor configured to manage a distribution of computing resources of the host system.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the hypervisor is configured to manage a distribution of computing resources of one or more other host systems.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein the hypervisor is included within the host system.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the physical I/O adapter of the host system comprises a network interface card.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein a first size of the first TCEs differs from a second size of the second TCEs.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the first size is greater than the second size, and wherein writing the one or more first TCEs from to the host TCE table comprises truncating the first TCEs.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the first TCEs and the second TCEs are arranged in the host TCE table such that the packet comprises one or more standard-sized TCEs, one or more truncated TCEs, and one or more other standard-sized TCEs.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transmitting, from the physical I/O adapter of the host system, the packet onto a physical network without copying the payload data onto a local memory of the host system.

13. A method of transmitting a packet within a virtualized network, the method comprising:
writing one or more first translation control entries (TCEs) from a client TCE table of a client system to a host TCE table of a host system providing at least a portion of computing resources of the client system, wherein the first TCEs indicate a location within the client system of payload data to be included within the packet;
writing one or more second TCEs to the host TCE table, wherein the second TCEs indicate a location within the host system of at least one of header and footer information to be included with the payload data within the packet; and
transmitting, from the host system, the packet onto a physical network without copying the payload data onto a local memory of the host system.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the client TCE table corresponds to a virtual input/output (I/O) adapter of the client system, and the host TCE table corresponds to a physical I/O adapter of the host system coupled with the physical network.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the physical I/O adapter of the host system comprises a network interface card.

16. The method of claim 14 , wherein the first TCEs and the second TCEs are written to the host TCE table in an order for transmission of the packet using the physical I/O adapter.

17. The method of claim 13 , wherein a first size of the first TCEs differs from a second size of the second TCEs.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the first size is greater than the second size, and wherein writing the one or more first TCEs from to the host TCE table comprises truncating the first TCEs.

19. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
receiving a subsequent encapsulated packet at the physical I/O adapter of the host system; and
sending payload data included in the subsequent encapsulated packet to a virtual I/O adapter of a destination client system having at least a portion of its computing resources provided by the host system.

20. The method of claim 13 , wherein writing the one or more first TCEs to the host TCE table is performed by a hypervisor configured to manage a distribution of computing resources of the host system.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Graham Charles S
• Rogness Nicholas J
• Royer Steven E

Classifications

• H04L45/745

  Address table lookup; Address filtering · CPC title

• H04L2212/0025

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L12/4633 Primary

  Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling · CPC title

• H04L45/58

  Association of routers · CPC title

• H04L2212/00

  Encapsulation of packets · CPC title