Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Cher-Wen Lin

Randall David Rettberg

Mizanur Mohammed Rahman

Kumar Ramaswamy

Robert A Doolittle

A multiprocessor computer system comprises a plurality of network interfaces each adapted to be coupled to respective external networks for receiving and sending data packets to and from remote devices coupled to the external networks via a particular communication protocol. The multiprocessor computer system further comprises a plurality of symmetrical processors including a control processor and at least one switching processor. The switching processor further includes at least one network application executing thereon. The control processor further includes an operating system portion having a kernel memory and at least one network driver communicating with the plurality of network interfaces. A buffer descriptor list is accessible by the network application and the network driver. The buffer descriptor list defines the status of buffers provided in the kernel memory that are used for temporary storage of data packets transferred between the network application and the plurality of network interfaces via the network driver. Data packets received by the network interfaces from the external networks directed to the network application are placed in selected ones of the buffers by the network driver for direct access by the network application. Similarly, data packets transmitted from the network application to the external networks are placed in other selected ones of the buffers for direct access by the network driver.

User-level dedicated interface for IP applications in a data packet switching and load balancing system

A data packet switching system comprises a plurality of network interfaces each adapted to be coupled to respective external networks for receiving and sending data packets to and from the external networks via a particular communication protocol. The data packet switching system further includes a plurality of symmetrical processors, including a first processor providing a control processor and remaining ones of the processors each providing data packet switching processors. The data packet switching processors are coupled to the plurality of network interfaces. The control processor further includes a user portion and an operating system portion. The operating system portion is provided with a pseudo-network driver that appears to be a network interface to user application programs operating on the user portion of the control processor. A memory space is shared by the control processor and the data packet switching processors. The data packet switching processors route an incoming data packet directed to a user application program to the memory space. The pseudo-network driver retrieves the incoming data packet from the shared memory space and provides the data packet to the user application program.

Software interface between switching module and operating system of a data packet switching and load balancing system

A data packet switching and server load balancing device is provided by a general-purpose multiprocessor computer system. The general-purpose multiprocessor computer system comprises a plurality of symmetrical processors coupled together by a common data bus, a main memory shared by the processors, and a plurality of network interfaces each adapted to be coupled to respective external networks for receiving and sending data packets via a particular communication protocol, such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). A first one of the processors is adapted to serve as a control processor and remaining ones of the processors are adapted to serve as data packet switching processors. The data packet switching processors are each coupled to at least one of the plurality of network interfaces. The control processor receives raw load status data from the external networks and generates load distribution configuration data therefrom. The load distribution configuration data is stored in the main memory for access by the data packet switching processors. The switching processors route received ones of the data packets to a selected one of the external networks in accordance with information included in a header portion of the data packets and the load distribution configuration data. The switching processors perform periodic polling of corresponding ones of the network interfaces to detect a received one of the data packets therein. In addition, the switching processors re-write the routing information included in the header portion of the data packets to reflect the selected one of the external networks.

Computer data packet switching and load balancing system using a general-purpose multiprocessor architecture

A data packet switching system comprises a plurality of network interfaces each adapted to be coupled to respective external networks for receiving and sending data packets to and from the external networks via a particular communication protocol. The data packet switching system further includes a plurality of symmetrical processors, including a first processor providing a control processor and remaining ones of said processors each providing data packet switching processors. The control processor is coupled to a corresponding one of the plurality of network interfaces and the data packet switching processors are coupled to each remaining one of the plurality of network interfaces. A switch is coupled to the control processor through the corresponding one of the network interfaces and is coupled to at least one of the switching processors through at least one other one of the network interfaces. The switching processors thereby are capable of routing a received one of the data packets directed to the control processor through the switch to the control processor.

Growing community of inventors

Milpitas, CA, United States of America

Cher-Wen Lin