Istor Networks, Inc.

Promise Technology, Inc.

Simpletech, Inc.

Roger Thorpe

Erasmo Javier Brenes

Alec Shen

Stephen F O'Neil

Jeffrey Oliver Thomas

Ting-Kuo Yu

Itsik Yomorta

Wei Kang Tsai

Lee Chuan Hu

Calvin Shen

Jordi Ros

Disclosed is a system and methods for acceleration of the TCP/IP and the iSCSI protocols. The methods may be adapted to a wide variety of systems and applications that employ communications protocols including TCP, with or without iSCSI. Using a hardware-based acceleration approach, common case network traffic is rapidly processed at near line rate thereby improving overall performance and alleviating processing bottlenecks.

Hardware-accelerated high availability integrated networked storage system

A bi-directional reflective memory channel between a pair of storage controllers is used to maintain a mirrored copy of each storage controller's native buffer contents within the buffer of the other storage controller. To maintain such mirrored copies, buffer write operations that fall within a reflective memory segment of one storage controller are automatically reflected across this channel to the other storage controller for execution, and vice versa. The write operations are preferably transmitted across the reflective memory channel using a protocol that provides for error checking, acknowledgements, and retransmissions. This protocol is preferably implemented entirely in automated circuitry, so that the mirrored copies are maintained without any CPU intervention during error-free operation. When a failover occurs, the surviving storage controller uses the mirrored copy of the failed storage controller's native buffer contents to assume control over the failed storage controller's disk drives.

Storage controller redundancy using bi-directional reflective memory channel

A networked system is described in which the majority of data bypass the server(s). This design improves the end-to-end performance of network access by achieving higher throughput between the network and storage system, improving reliability of the system, yet retaining the security, flexibility, and services that a server-based system provides. The apparatus that provides this improvement consists of a network interface, server computer interface, and storage interface. It also has a switching element and a high-layer protocol decoding and control unit. Incoming traffic (either from the network or storage system) is decoded and compared against a routing table. If there is a matching entry, it will be routed, according to the information to the network, the storage interface, or sent to the server for further processing (default). The routing table entries are set up by the server based on the nature of the applications when an application or user request initially comes in. Subsequently, barring any changes or errors, there will be no data exchange between the server and the device (although, a control message may still flow between them). There may also be a speed matching function between the network and storage, load balancing function for servers, and flow control for priority and QoS purposes. Because the majority of data traffic will bypass the bus and the operating system (OS) of the server(s), the reliability and throughput can also be significantly improved. Therefore, for a given capacity of a server, much more data traffic can be handled. Certain improvements concerning one particular,embodiment of the invention are also disclosed.

System for bypassing a server to achieve higher throughput between data network and data storage system

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Irvine, CA, United States of America

Roger Thorpe