The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 03, 2011
Filed:
Apr. 30, 2008
Tom Hicks, Cranberry Township, PA (US);
Michael L. Kazar, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Daniel S. Nydick, Wexford, PA (US);
Andrew G. Reynolds, Cranberry Township, PA (US);
Richard N. Sanzi, Jr., Gibsonia, PA (US);
Fred Gohh, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
David Graham, Cranberry Township, PA (US);
Tom Hicks, Cranberry Township, PA (US);
Michael L. Kazar, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Daniel S. Nydick, Wexford, PA (US);
Andrew G. Reynolds, Cranberry Township, PA (US);
Richard N. Sanzi, Jr., Gibsonia, PA (US);
Fred Gohh, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
David Graham, Cranberry Township, PA (US);
NetApp, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
A system and method for offloading network processes from main processors of a storage system and performing them on parallel processing modules. Embodiments of the present invention improve performance of a clustered storage system by performing certain network processes in an accelerator module of a storage system node. The accelerator module receives multi-protocol protocol data units (PDUs) from a network interface, performs protocol operations on the PDUs to form file system requests and passes the file system requests to a local D-module. If a file system request is directed to a non-local D-module in the cluster, the accelerator module repackages the request for transmission to the appropriate D-module and passes it back to the network without using local D-module processing resources or passing data over the system bus.