Facebook, Inc.

Eitan Frachtenberg

Yael Gregory Maguire

Jason M Taylor

Per W Brashers

Amir Meir Michael

Mateusz Berezecki

Song Liu

Yuehai Xu

Techniques for a network interface controller (NIC) capable of performing general-purpose computing tasks without intervention from a central processing unit (CPU) are disclosed herein. The network interface controller includes a circuit board, a network interface, a computer bus interface and a processor. The network interface is operatively coupled to the circuit board for receiving network packets. The computer bus interface is operatively coupled to the circuit board for receiving a general-purpose program. The processor is operatively coupled to the circuit board and capable of executing the general-purpose program to process the network packets.

Network interface device having general-purpose computing capability

Systems and methods for predictive cache replacement policies are provided. In particular, some embodiments dynamically capture and predict access patterns of data to determine which data should be evicted from the cache. A novel tree data structure can be dynamically built that allows for immediate use in the identification of developing patterns and the eviction determination. In some cases, the data can be dynamically organized into histograms, strings, and other representations allowing traditional analysis techniques to be applied. Data organized into histogram-like structures can also be converted into strings allowing for well-known string pattern recognition analysis. The pattern recognition and prediction techniques disclosed also have applications outside of caching.

Predictive cache replacement

Various cache replacement policies are described whose goals are to identify items for eviction from the cache that are not accessed often and to identify items stored in the cache that are regularly accessed that should be maintained longer in the cache. In particular, the cache replacement policies are useful for workloads that have a strong temporal locality, that is, items that are accessed very frequently for a period of time and then quickly decay in terms of further accesses. In one embodiment, a variation on the traditional least recently used caching algorithm uses a reuse period or reuse distance for an accessed item to determine whether the item should be promoted in the cache queue. In one embodiment, a variation on the traditional two queue caching algorithm evicts items from the cache from both an active queue and an inactive queue.

Cache replacement policy for data with strong temporal locality

A file storage system may be implemented by coordinating non-exhaustible and exhaustible storage devices. The exhaustible storage devices may be lower grade flash based storage devices. The non-exhaustible storage devices may be storage devices based on magnetic recording mechanisms or higher grade flash storage. The file storage system may store received content items on the exhaustible storage devices. The file storage system may additionally store metadata for the content items and/or the file storage system on the non-exhaustible storage devices. During operation, the file storage system may globally optimize the content items on the exhaustible storage devices such that more heavily accessed items are moved to exhaustible storage devices that have experienced relatively few data operations. The file storage system can move less frequently accessed content items to exhaustible storage devices that have experienced a relatively large number of data operations. As such, the operation lifetime of the exhaustible storage devices as a whole can be prolonged.

File storage system based on coordinated exhaustible and non-exhaustible storage

A file storage system is implemented by coordinating non-exhaustible and exhaustible storage devices. The exhaustible storage devices include lower grade flash based storage devices. The non-exhaustible storage devices are based on magnetic recording mechanisms or higher grade flash storage. The file storage system stores received content items on the exhaustible storage devices, and stores metadata for the content items and/or the file storage system on the non-exhaustible storage devices. During operation, the file storage system globally optimizes the content items on the exhaustible storage devices such that more heavily accessed items are moved to exhaustible storage devices that have experienced relatively few data operations. The file storage system moves less frequently accessed content items to exhaustible storage devices that have experienced a relatively large number of data operations. As such, the operation lifetime of the exhaustible storage devices as a whole can be prolonged.

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Eitan Frachtenberg