Cisco Technology, Inc.

Pensando Systems Inc.

Hemant Vinchure

Michael Brian Galles

J Bradley Smith

Certain tasks related to processing layer 7 (L7) data streams, such as HTTP data streams, can be performed by an L7 assist circuit instead of by general-purpose CPUs. The L7 assist circuit can normalize URLs, Huffman decode, Huffman encode, and generate hashes of normalized URLs. A L7 data stream, which is reassembled from received network packets, includes an L7 header. L7 assist produces an augmented L7 header that is added to the L7 data stream. The CPUs can use the augmented L7 header, thereby speeding up processing. On the outbound path, L7 assist can remove the augmented L7 header and perform Huffman encoding such that the CPUs can perform other tasks.

Methods and systems for layer 7 hardware assist and CPU task offloads

Methods and apparatuses for a programmable IO device interface are provided. The apparatus may comprise: a first memory unit having a plurality of programs stored thereon, the plurality of programs are associated with a plurality of actions comprising updating memory based data structure, inserting a DMA command or initiating an event; a second memory unit for receiving and storing a table result, and the table result is provided by a table engine configured to perform packet match operations on (i) a packet header vector contained in a header portion and (ii) data stored in a programmable match table; and circuitry for executing a program selected from the plurality of programs in response to the table result and an address received by the apparatus, and the program is executed until completion and the program is associated with the programmable match table.

Programmable computer IO device interface

Methods and systems are disclosed herein for providing a universal PCIe port. The same port can be configured to accept a PCIe component as a host or an endpoint (device) symmetrically. The PCIe port can be connected to the host interface or the root complex interface if the PCIe connection is to be configured as a host or an endpoint, respectively. A virtual topology can be provided for a host that associates the host with corresponding endpoints. A mapping between virtual addresses of the corresponding endpoints in the virtual topology and local addresses of the corresponding endpoints is provided.

Universal PCI express port

Methods and systems are disclosed herein for providing a universal PCIe port. In one example, the same port is configured to accept a PCIe connection as a host or an endpoint symmetrically. Downstream transactions towards an endpoint can be intercepted and a virtual address in the downstream transaction can be translated to a local address using a mapping. The downstream transactions can be forwarded to the endpoint using the local address instead of the virtual address. For endpoints that share the same local address with multiple hosts, a reverse lookup may be provided to determine which one of the hosts a local address corresponds when forwarding upstream transactions. PCIe over Ethernet is provided as one embodiment for allowing remote PCIe endpoints to be associated with a local host transparently.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Hemant Vinchure