1. Field
The present embodiments relate to a method, system, and program for supporting multiple interfaces in a storage enclosure.
2. Description of the Related Art
An adaptor or multi-channel protocol controller enables a device coupled to the adaptor to communicate with one or more connected end devices according to a storage interconnect architecture, also known as a hardware interface, where a storage interconnect architecture defines a standard way to communicate and recognize such communications, such as Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) (SAS), Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA), Fibre Channel, etc. These storage interconnect architectures allow a device to maintain one or more connections to another end device via a point-to-point connection, an arbitrated loop of devices, an expander providing a connection to further end devices, or a fabric comprising interconnected switches providing connections to multiple end devices. In the SAS/SATA architecture, a SAS port is comprised of one or more SAS PHYs, where each SAS PHY interfaces a physical layer, i.e., the physical interface or connection, and a SAS link layer having multiple protocol link layer. Communications from the SAS PHYs in a port are processed by the transport layers for that port. There is one transport layer for each SAS port to interface with each type of application layer supported by the port. A “PHY” as defined in the SAS protocol is a device object that is used to interface to other devices and a physical interface. Further details on the SAS architecture for devices and expanders is described in the technology specification “Information Technology—Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)”, reference no. ISO/IEC 14776-150:200x and ANSI INCITS.***:200×PHY layer (Jul. 9, 2003), published by ANSI; details on the Fibre Channel architecture are described in the technology specification “Fibre Channel Framing and Signaling Interface”, document no. ISO/IEC AWI 14165-25; details on the SATA architecture are described in the technology specification “Serial ATA: High Speed Serialized AT Attachment” Rev. 1.0A (January 2003).
Within an adaptor, the PHY layer performs the serial to parallel conversion of data, so that parallel data is transmitted to layers above the PHY layer, and serial data is transmitted from the PHY layer through the physical interface to the PHY layer of a receiving device. In the SAS specification, there is one set of link layers for each SAS PHY layer, so that effectively each link layer protocol engine is coupled to a parallel-to-serial converter in the PHY layer. A connection path connects to a port coupled to each PHY layer in the adaptor and terminate in a physical interface within another device or on an expander device, where the connection path may comprise a cable or etched paths on a printed circuit board.
An expander is a device that facilitates communication and provides for routing among multiple SAS devices, where multiple SAS devices and additional expanders connect to the ports on the expander, where each port has one or more SAS PHYs and corresponding physical interfaces. The expander also extends the distance of the connection between SAS devices. The expander may route information from a device connecting to a SAS PHY on the expander to another SAS device connecting to the expander PHYs. In SAS, using the expander requires additional serial to parallel conversions in the PHY layers of the expander ports. Upon receiving a frame, a serial-to-parallel converter, which may be part of the PHY, converts the received data from serial to parallel to route internally to an output SAS PHY, which converts the frame from parallel to serial to the target device. The SAS PHY may convert parallel data to serial data through one or more encoders and convert serial data to parallel data through a parallel data builder and one or more decoders. A phased lock loop (PLL) may be used to track incoming serial data and lock into the frequency and phase of the signal. This tracking of the signal may introduce noise and error into the signal.
Referring now to the drawings in which like reference numbers represent corresponding parts throughout:
In the following description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof and which illustrate several embodiments. It is understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural and operational changes may be made.
The operating system 10 may load a device driver 20a, 20b, 20c for each protocol supported in the adaptor 12a, 12b to enable communication with a device communicating using the supported protocol and also load a bus driver 24, such as a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) interface, to enable communication with a bus 26. Further details of PCI interface are described in the publication “PCI Local Bus, Rev. 2.3”, published by the PCI-SIG. The operating system 10 may load device drivers 20a, 20b, 20c supported by the adaptors 12a, 12b upon detecting the presence of the adaptors 12a, 12b, which may occur during initialization or dynamically, such as the case with plug-and-play device initialization. In the embodiment of
The PHY layer 32a, 32b . . . 32n further performs the speed negotiation with the PHY in the external device transmitting data to adaptor 12. In certain embodiments, the PHY layer 32a, 32b . . . 32n may be programmed to allow speed negotiation and detection of different protocols transmitting at the same or different transmission speeds. For instance, SATA and SAS transmissions can be detected because they are transmitted at speeds of 1.5 gigahertz (GHz) and 3 GHz and Fibre Channel transmissions can be detected because they are transmitted at 1.0625 GHz, 2.125 GHz, and 4.25 GHz. Because link transmission speeds may be different for certain storage interfaces, the PHY layer 32a, 32b . . . 32n may detect storage interfaces having different link speeds by maintaining information on speeds for different storage interfaces. However, certain different storage interfaces, such as SAS and SATA, may transmit at the same link speeds and support common transport protocols. If storage interfaces transmit at a same link speed, then the PHY layer 32a, 32b . . . 32n may distinguish among storage interfaces capable of transmitting at the same speed by checking the transmission format to determine the storage interface and protocol, where the link protocol defines the characteristics of the transmission, including speed and transmission data format.
For instance, the SAS and SATA protocol can be distinguished not only by their transmission speeds, but also by their use of the OOB signal. Other protocols, such as Fibre Channel do not use the OOB signal. Fibre Channel, SAS and SATA all have a four byte primitive. The primitive of SATA can be distinguished because the first byte of the SATA primitive indicates “K28.3”, whereas the first byte of the SAS and Fibre Channel primitive indicates “K28.5”. The SAS and Fibre Channel primitives can be distinguished based on the content of the next three bytes of their primitives, which differ. Thus, the content of the primitives can be used to distinguish between the SAS, SATA and Fibre Channel protocols. Additionally, different of the protocols, such as SAS and Fibre Channel have different handshaking protocols. Thus, the handshaking protocol being used by the device transmitting the information can be used to distinguish the storage connect interface being used.
The PHY layer 32a, 32b . . . 32n forwards the frame to the link layer 36 in the expander 34. The link layer 36 may maintain a set of elements for each protocol supported by a port, such as a Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP) link layer 38 to process SSP frames, a Serial Tunneling Protocol (STP) layer 38b, a Serial Management Protocol (SMP) layer 38c, and a Fibre Channel link layer 38d to support the Fibre Channel protocol for transporting the frames. Within the expander 34, information is routed from one PHY to another. The transmitted information may include primitives, packets, frames, etc., and may be used to establish the connection and open the address frame. A router 40 routes transmissions between the protocol engines 42a, 42b and the PHY layers 32a, 32b . . . 32n. The router 40 maintains a router table 41 providing an association of PHY layers 32a, 32b . . . 32n to protocol engines 42a, 42b, such that a transmission from a PHY layer or protocol engine is routed to the corresponding protocol engine or PHY layer, respectively, indicated in the router table 41. If the protocol engines 42a, 42b support the transport protocol, e.g., SSP, STP, SMP, Fibre Channel protocol, etc., associated with the link layer 38a, 38b, 83c, 38d forwarding the transmission, then the router 40 may use any technique known in the art to select among the multiple protocol engines 42a, 42b to process the transmission, such as round robin, load balancing based on protocol engine 42a, 42b utilization, etc. The Fibre Channel Protocol comprises the transport layer for handling information transmitted on a Fibre Channel storage interface. Data may be communicated in frames, packets, primitives or any other data transmission format known in the art. A transport layer comprises any circuitry, including software or hardware, that is use to provide a virtual error-free, point to point connection to allow for the transmission of information between devices so that transmitted information arrives un-corrupted and in the correct order. The transport layer further establishes, e.g., opens, and dissolves connections between devices.
A transport protocol provides a set of transmission rules and handshaking procedures used to implement a transport layer, often defined by an industry standard, such as SAS, SATA, Fibre Channel, etc. The transport layer and protocol may comprise those transport protocols described herein and others known in the art. The protocol engine 42a, 42b comprises the hardware and/or software that implements different transport protocols to provide transport layer functionality for different protocols.
Each protocol engine 42a, 42b is capable of performing protocol related operations for all the protocols supported by the adaptor 12. Alternatively, different protocol engines may support different protocols. For instance, protocol engine 42b may support the same transport layers as protocol engine 42a or a different set of transport layers. Each protocol engine 42a, 42b implements a port layer 44, and a transport layer, such as a SSP transport layer 46a, STP transport layer 46b, SMP transport layer 46c, and a Fibre Channel Protocol transport layer 46d. Further, the protocol engines 30a, 30b may support the transport and network layer related operations for the supported protocols. The port layer 44 interfaces between the link layers 38a, 38b, 38c, 38d via the router 40 and the transport layers 46a, 46b, 46c, 46d to transmit information to the correct transport layer or link layer. The PHYs 32a, 32b . . . 32n and corresponding physical interfaces 30a, 30b . . . 30n may be organized into one or more ports, where each SAS port has a unique SAS address. The port comprises a component or construct to which interfaces are assigned. An address comprises any identifier used to identify a device or component. The protocol engines 42a, 42b may further include one or more virtual PHY layers to enable communication with virtual PHY layers in the router 40. A virtual PHY is an internal PHY that connects to another PHY inside of the device, and not to an external PHY. Data transmitted to the virtual PHY typically does not need to go through a serial-to-parallel conversion.
Each protocol engine 42a, 42b includes an instance of the protocol transport layers 46a, 46b, 46c, 46d, where there is one transport layer to interface with each type of application layer 48a, 48b, 48c in the application layer 50. The application layer 50 may be supported in the adaptor 12 or host system 2 and provides network services to the end users. For instance, the SSP transport layer 46a and Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) transport layer 46b interface with a SCSI application layer 48a, the STP transport layer 46c interfaces with an Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) application layer 48b, and the SMP transport layer 46d interfaces with a management application layer 48c. Further details of the ATA technology are described in the publication “Information Technology-AT Attachment with Packet Interface-6 (ATA/ATAPI-6)”, reference no. ANSI INCITS 361-2002 (September, 2002).
All the PHY layers 32a, 32b . . . 32n may share the same link layer and protocol link layers, or there may be a separate instance of each link layer and link layer protocol 38a, 38b, 38c, 38d for each PHY. Further, each protocol engine 42a, 42b may include one port layer 44 for all ports including the PHY layers 32a, 32b . . . 32n or may include a separate instance of the port layer 44 for each port in which one or more PHY layers and the corresponding physical interfaces are organized. Further details on the operations of the physical layer, PHY layer, link layer, port layer, transport layer, and application layer and components implementing such layers described herein are found in the technology specification “Information Technology—Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)”, referenced above.
The router 40 allows the protocol engines 42a, 42b to communicate to any of the PHY layers 32a, 32b . . . 32n. The protocol engines 42a, 42b communicate parallel data to the PHY layers 32a, 32b . . . 32n, which include parallel-to-serial converters to convert the parallel data to serial data for transmittal through the corresponding physical interface 30a, 30b . . . 30n. The data may be communicated to a PHY on the target device or an intervening external expander. A target device is a device to which information is transmitted from a source or initiator device attempting to communicate with the target device.
With the described embodiments of
Allowing one protocol engine to handle multiple targets further reduces the number of protocol engines that need to be implemented in the adaptor to support all the targets.
If (at block 108) the determined storage interface complies with the SATA protocol, then the connection is established (at block 110) and no further action is necessary. If (at block 108) the connection utilizes the SAS protocol, then the link layer 36 processes (at block 112) an OPEN frame to determine the SAS transport protocol to use (e.g., SSP, STP, SMP, Fibre Channel Protocol). The OPEN frame is then forwarded (at block 114) to the determined SAS protocol link layer 38a, 38b, 38c, 38d (SSP, STP,SMP, Fibre Channel Protocol) to process. The protocol link layer 38a, 38b, 38c, 38d then establishes (at block 116) an open connection for all subsequent frames transmitted as part of that opened connection. The connection must be opened using the OPEN frame between an initiator and target port before communication may begin. A connection is established between one SAS initiator PHY in the SAS initiator port and one SAS target PHY in the SAS target port. If (at blocks 108 and 118) the storage interface complies with a point-to-point Fibre Channel protocol, then the connection is established (at block 120). Otherwise, if (at blocks 108 and 118) the storage interface complies with the Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop protocol, then the Fibre Channel link layer 38d establishes (at block 122) the open connection for all subsequent frames transmitted as part of connection. The Fibre Channel link layer 38d may establish the connection using Fibre Channel open primitives. Further details of the Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop protocol are described in the publication “Information Technology-Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL-2)”, having document no. ANSI INCITS 332-1999.
With the described implementations, the PHY layer 32a, 32b . . . 32n is able to determine the storage interface for different storage interfaces that transmit at different transmission link speeds and/or have different transmission characteristics. This determined storage interface information is then forwarded to the link layer 36 to use to determine which link layer protocol and transport protocol to use to establish the connection, such as a SAS link layer protocol, e.g., 38a, 38b, 38c, or the Fibre Channel link layer protocol 38d, where the different protocols that may be used require different processing to handle.
If (at block 156) the protocol of the connection request complies with the SAS or Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop protocol, then the router 40 selects (at block 166) one protocol engine 46a, 46b to use based on a selection criteria. If (at block 168) all protocol engines 46a, 46b capable of handling the determined protocol are busy, then the PHY receiving the transmission is signaled that the connection request failed, and the PHY 32a, 32b . . . 32n returns (at block 170) an OPEN reject command to the transmitting device. Otherwise, if (at block 168) a protocol engine 46a, 46b is available, then an entry is added (at block 172) to the router table 41 associating the PHY 42a, 42b . . . 42n forwarding the transmission with one protocol engine 46a, 46b. The router 40 signals (at block 174) the PHY that the connection is established, and the PHY returns OPEN accept. The router 40 forwards (at block 176) the transmission to the selected protocol engine 46a, 46b.
Additionally, the application layer 50 may open a connection to transmit information to a target device by communicating the open request frames to one protocol engine 42a, 42b, using load balancing or some other selecting technique, where the protocol engine 42a, 42b transport and port layers transmit the open connection frames to the router 40 to direct the link initialization to the appropriate link layer and PHY layer.
Described embodiments provide techniques for allowing connections with different storage interfaces that communicate at different transmission speeds and/or different transmission characteristics. In this way, a single adaptor 12 may provide multiple connections for different storage interfaces (storage interconnect architectures) that communicate using different transmission characteristics, such as transmitting at different link speeds or including different protocol information in the transmissions. For instance, the adaptor 12 may be included in an enclosure that is connected to multiple storage devices on a rack or provides the connections for storage devices within the same enclosure.
Still further, with the described embodiments, there may be only one serial to parallel conversion between the PHY layers 32a, 32b . . . 32n performing parallel-to-serial conversion and the protocol engines 42a, 42b within the adaptor. In implementations where the expander is located external to the adaptor, three parallel-to-serial conversions may be performed to communicate data from the connections to the router (serial to parallel), from the router in the expander to the adaptor (parallel to serial), and at the adaptor from the connection to the protocol engine (serial to parallel). Certain described embodiments eliminate the need for two of these conversions by allowing the parallel data to be transmitted directly from the router to the protocol engines in the same adaptor component. Reducing the number of parallel to serial conversions and corresponding PLL tracking reduces data and bit errors that may be introduced by the frequency changes produced by the PLL in the converters and may reduce latency delays caused by such additional conversions.
For instance, in certain embodiments, the physical interfaces 206a and 206b may be capable of mating with a SATA/SAS physical interface and the physical interfaces 204a and 204b may be capable of mating with a Fibre Channel physical interface. In this way a single slot 202a, 202b allows mating with the storage unit having physical interfaces having different physical configurations. For instance, if the storage unit 203 interface was designed to plug into a SAS/SATA interface, then the user would rotate the storage unit 203 to interface with the physical interface, e.g., 204a, supporting that interface, whereas if the storage interface was designed to plug into a Fibre Channel interface, then the user would rotate the storage unit 203 to interface with the supporting physical interface, e.g., 206a.
In certain embodiments, the storage unit 203 may include only one physical interface to mate with one physical interface, e.g., 204a, 206a in one slot, e.g., 202a.
In certain embodiments, a multidrop connector 266a, 266b, 266c extends from the physical interface for each PHY 262a, 262b, 262c to one of the slots 252a, 252b, 252c, where each end on the multidrop connector 266a, 266b, 266c is coupled to one of the interfaces 254a, 256a; 254b, 256b; and 254c, 256c, respectively, in the slots 252a, 252b, 252c, respectively. A multidrop connector comprises a communication line with multiple access points, where the access points may comprise cable access points, etched path access points, etc. In this way, one multidrop connector provides the physical connection to different physical interfaces in one slot, where the different physical interfaces may have different physical dimensions and pin arrangements. To accommodate different physical interfaces, the multidrop connector 268a, 268b, 268c terminators includes different physical connectors for mating with the different storage interconnect physical interfaces e.g., SAS/SATA, Fibre Channel, that may be on the storage unit 203, e.g., disk drive, inserted in the slot 252a, 252b, 252c and mated to physical interface 254a, 256a, 254b, 256b, 254c, 256c. The multidrop connectors 266a, 266b, 266c may comprise cables or paths etched on a printed circuit board.
The expander may further include a router to route a transmission from one PHY to another PHY connecting to the target device or path to the target device. The expander router may further maintain a router table that associates PHYs with the address of the devices to which they are attached, so a transmission received on one PHY directed to an end device is routed to the PHY associated with that end device.
With respect to
With the described embodiments, storage units, such as disk drives, having different connection interfaces may be inserted within the slots 252a, 252b, 252c (
Described embodiments provide architectures to allow a single adaptor interface to be used to interface with devices using different storage interfaces, i.e., storage interconnect architectures, where some of the storage interfaces use different and non-overlapping link speeds. This overcomes the situation where a single adaptor/controller, such a SAS device, may not support storage interconnect architectures that have different transmission characteristics, such as is the case where an adaptor supporting SAS/SATA may not support the Fibre Channel interface because such an adaptor cannot detect data transmitted using the Fibre Channel interface (storage interconnect architecture) and thus cannot load the necessary drivers in the operating system to support Fibre Channel.
The described embodiments may be implemented as a method, apparatus or article of manufacture using programming and/or engineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof. The term “article of manufacture” and “circuitry” as used herein refers to a state machine, code or logic implemented in hardware logic (e.g., an integrated circuit chip, Programmable Gate Array (PGA), Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc.) or a computer readable medium, such as magnetic storage medium (e.g., hard disk drives, floppy disks, tape, etc.), optical storage (CD-ROMs, optical disks, etc.), volatile and non-volatile memory devices (e.g., EEPROMs, ROMs, PROMs, RAMs, DRAMs, SRAMs, firmware, programmable logic, etc.). Code in the computer readable medium is accessed and executed by a processor. When the code or logic is executed by a processor, the circuitry would include the medium including the code or logic as well as the processor that executes the code loaded from the medium. The code in which preferred embodiments are implemented may further be accessible through a transmission media or from a file server over a network. In such cases, the article of manufacture in which the code is implemented may comprise a transmission media, such as a network transmission line, wireless transmission media, signals propagating through space, radio waves, infrared signals, etc. Thus, the “article of manufacture” may comprise the medium in which the code is embodied. Additionally, the “article of manufacture” may comprise a combination of hardware and software components in which the code is embodied, processed, and executed. Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize that many modifications may be made to this configuration, and that the article of manufacture may comprise any information bearing medium known in the art.
Additionally, the expander, PHYs, and protocol engines may be implemented in one or more integrated circuits on the adaptor or on the motherboard.
In the described embodiments, layers were shown as operating within specific components, such as the expander and protocol engines. In alternative implementations, layers may be implemented in a manner different than shown. For instance, the link layer and link layer protocols may be implemented with the protocol engines or the port layer may be implemented in the expander.
In the described embodiments, the protocol engines each support multiple transport protocols. In alternative embodiments, the protocol engines may support different transport protocols, so the expander 40 would direct communications for a particular protocol to that protocol supporting the determined protocol.
In the described embodiments, transmitted information is received at an adaptor card from a remote device over a connection. In alternative embodiments, the transmitted and received information processed by the transport protocol layer or device driver may be received from a separate process executing in the same computer in which the device driver and transport protocol driver execute.
In certain implementations, the device driver and network adaptor embodiments may be included in a computer system including a storage controller, such as a SCSI, Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID), etc., controller, that manages access to a non-volatile or volatile storage device, such as a magnetic disk drive, tape media, optical disk, etc. In alternative implementations, the network adaptor embodiments may be included in a system that does not include a storage controller, such as certain hubs and switches.
In certain implementations, the adaptor may be configured to transmit data across a cable connected to a port on the adaptor. In further embodiments, the adaptor may be configured to transmit data across etched paths on a printed circuit board. Alternatively, the adaptor embodiments may be configured to transmit data over a wireless network or connection.
In described embodiments, the storage interfaces supported by the adaptors comprised SATA, SAS and Fibre Channel. In additional embodiments, other storage interfaces may be supported. Additionally, the adaptor was described as supporting certain transport protocols, e.g. SSP, Fibre Channel Protocol, STP, and SMP. In further implementations, the adaptor may support additional transport protocols used for transmissions with the supported storage interfaces. The supported storage interfaces may transmit using different transmission characteristics, e.g., different link speeds and different protocol information included with the transmission. Further, the physical interfaces may have different physical configurations, i.e., the arrangement and number of pins and other physical interconnectors, when the different supported storage interconnect architectures use different physical configurations.
The adaptor 12 may be implemented on a network card, such as a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) card or some other I/O card, or on integrated circuit components mounted on a system motherboard or backplane.
In described embodiments, the interfaces in the slot extend along the vertical length of the slot and are in a parallel orientation with respect to each other. In alternative embodiments, the two interfaces may be oriented in different ways with respect to each other and the slot depending on the corresponding interface on the storage unit assembly. Further, in additional implementations more than two physical interfaces may be included in the slot for the different protocols supported by the adaptor.
The illustrated logic of
The foregoing description of various embodiments has been presented for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/741,460 filed on Dec. 18, 2003, which patent application is incorporated herein in its entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 10741460 | Dec 2003 | US |
Child | 11551218 | Oct 2006 | US |