Intelligent Network Interface Device

Abstract: A host CPU runs a network protocol processing stack that provides instructions not only to process network messages but also to allocate processing of certain network messages to a specialized network communication device, offloading some of the most time consuming protocol processing from the host CPU to the network communication device. By allocating common and time consuming network processes to the device, while retaining the ability to handle less time intensive and more varied processing on the host stack, the network communication device can be relatively simple and cost effective. The host CPU, operating according to instructions from the stack, and the network communication device together determine whether and to what extent a given message is processed by the host CPU or by the network communication device.

Abstract: A transmit offload engine (TOE) such as an intelligent network interface device (INIC), video controller or host bus adapter (HBA) that can communicate data over transport protocols such as Transport Control Protocol (TCP) for a host. Such a device can send and receive data for the host to and from a remote host, over a TCP connection maintained by the device. For sending data, the device can indicate to the host that data has been transmitted from the device to a network, prior to receiving, by the device from the network, an acknowledgement (ACK) for all the data, accelerating data transmission. The greatest sequence number for which all previous bytes have been ACKed can be provided with a response to a subsequent command, with the host maintaining a table of ACK values to complete commands when appropriate.

Abstract: An intelligent network interface card or communication processing device (30) works with a host computer (20) for data communication. The device provides a fast-path (159) that avoids protocol processing for most messages, greatly accelerating data transfer and offloading time-intensive processing tasks from the host CPU (28). The host retains a fallback processing capability for messages that do not fit fast-path criteria, with the device providing assistance such as validation even for slow-path messages, and messages being selected for either fast-path or slow-path (158) processing. A context (50) for a connection is defined that allows the device to move data, free of headers, directly to or from a destination or source in the host. The context can be passed back to the host for message processing by the host. The device contains specialized hardware circuits that are much faster at their specific tasks than a general purpose CPU. A preferred embodiment includes a trio of pipelined processors (482, 484, 486) devoted to receive, transmit and utility processing, providing full duplex communication for four Fast Ethernet nodes.

Abstract: One or more virtual access nodes manage multiple physical links connecting a digital subscriber line access multiplexer and an intelligent network interface device by logically bonding physical ports together into a group. Physical ports bonded in a logical group have equal priority with respect to one another. Thus, no master-slave relationship exists between the physical ports in the logical group. Traffic associated with a site is transmitted over physical links associated with the logical group of physical ports to a customer premises network interface device. The customer premises network interface device subsequently aggregates the received traffic and provides an increased bandwidth to the site over the physical links. The quality of communication is based on the number of operational physical links associated with the logical group. As long as at least one physical link associated with the logical group remains operational, communication will be enabled.