METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR COMMUNICATIONS-STACK OFFLOAD TO A HARDWARE CONTROLLER

摘要

The current document is directed to offloading communications processing from server computers to hardware controllers, including network interface controllers. In one implementation, the transport channel and zero, one, or more protocol channels immediately overlying the transport channel of a Windows Communication Foundation communications stack are offloaded to a network interface controller. The offloading of communications processing carried out by the methods and systems to which the current document is directed involves minimal supporting development and is configurable, during service-application initialization, by exchange of relatively small amounts of information between an enhanced NIC and the communications stack.

主权项

1. An offloading network-interface controller within a computer system, the offloading network-interface controller comprising:
one or more processors; an internal memory; and firmware instructions stored within the offloading network-interface controller and executed by the one or more processors that includes implementations of one or more user-mode transport and upper-level protocol channels as well as operating-system-mode lower-level protocols of a communications stack, the firmware instructions controlling the offloading network-interface controller to operate in one of
an offload mode, in which case the offloading network-interface controller executes, on one or more of the one or more processors, the operating-system-mode lower-level protocols and at least the user-mode transport protocol channel, anda non-offload mode, in which case the one or more system processors execute the user-mode transport and upper-level protocol channels as well as operating-system-mode lower-level protocols of the communications stack.