Patent Grant
10135731
1. Field of the Invention
The embodiments of the present invention relate to allocation and disassociation of disparate computing resources of clustered computing nodes. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to systems and methods for providing remote memory access functionality in a cluster of data processing nodes such as for allocating pooled memory resources to a plurality of interconnected compute nodes preferably by enabling memory capacity to be provisioned based on workload on a per-node basis.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, network systems used different topologies, e.g. Ethernet architecture employed a spanning tree type of topology. Recently, Ethernet fabric topology has been developed that provides a higher level of performance, utilization, availability and simplicity. Such Ethernet fabric topologies are flatter and self-aggregating in part because of the use of intelligent switches in the fabric that are aware of the other switches and can find shortest paths without loops. One benefit is that Ethernet fabric topologies are scalable with high performance and reliability. Ethernet fabric data center architectures are available from Juniper, Avaya, Brocade, and Cisco.
A “shared nothing architecture” is a distributed computing architecture in which each node is independent and self-sufficient. Typically, none of the nodes share memory or disk storage. A shared nothing architecture is popular for web development because of its scalability. What is deficient in typical shared nothing clusters is the ability to allow memory capacity to be provisioned based on workload on a per-node basis, to implement memcached functionality on a per-node basis across a plurality of nodes in a cluster, to load/store from remote memory, to perform remote DMA transactions, and to perform remote interrupts.
The system and method of the present invention provide flexible methods of extending these distributed network systems beyond the typical shared nothing cluster to accommodate different protocols in varying network topologies. The systems and methods hereof provide the ability to load/store from remote memory, implement memcached functionality on a per-node basis across a plurality of nodes in a cluster, perform remote DMA transactions, perform remote interrupts, allow a wide range of use cases that greatly extend performance, power optimization, and functionality of shared nothing clusters. Several examples are described which include network acceleration, storage acceleration, message acceleration, and shared memory windows across a power-optimized interconnect multi-protocol fabric.
In one embodiment, a server card system comprises a first server on a chip (SoC) node card and a second SoC node card. The first server on a chip (SoC) node card is characterized by a SoC node density configuration enabling the first SoC node card to serve in a role of providing information computing resources to one or more data processing systems. The second SoC node card characterized by a memory configuration enabling the second SoC node card to serve in a role of enabling memory resources thereof to be allocated to one or more SoC nodes of the first SoC node card.
In another embodiment, a server apparatus comprises a plurality of server on a chip (SoC) nodes interconnected to each other through a node interconnect fabric. Each one of the SoC nodes has respective memory resources integral therewith. Each one of the SoC nodes has information computing resources accessible by one or more data processing systems. Each one of the SoC nodes configured with memory access functionality enabling allocation of at least a portion of said memory resources thereof to one or more other ones of the SoC nodes and enabling allocation of at least a portion of said memory resources of one or more other ones of the SoC nodes thereto based on a workload thereof.
In another embodiment a data processing facility comprises a server rack having a mounting structure for enabling a plurality of server rack chassis to be individually mounted therein, a first server rack chassis engaged with the mounting structure within the server rack, and a second server rack chassis engaged with the mounting structure within the server rack. The first server rack chassis includes a plurality of server on a chip (SoC) nodes each characterized by a SoC node density configuration enabling the SoC nodes of the first server rack chassis to serve in a role of providing information computing resources to one or more data processing systems. The second server rack chassis includes a plurality of SoC nodes interconnected to the SoC nodes of the first server rack chassis through a node interconnect fabric. Each one of the SoC nodes of the second server rack chassis is characterized by a memory configuration enabling the second SoC node to serve in a role of enabling memory resources thereof to be allocated to one ore more of the SoC nodes of the first server rack chassis.
In another embodiment, a server apparatus comprises a central processing unit (CPU) subsystem and a memory subsystem. The central processing unit (CPU) subsystem includes a plurality of server on a chip (SoC) nodes characterized by a SoC node density configuration enabling the CPU subsystem to serve in a role of providing information computing resources to one or more data processing systems. The SoC nodes are physically contained in a first physical enclosure unit. The memory subsystem is operably coupled to the CPU subsystem for enabling the SoC nodes to access memory units of the memory subsystem. The memory units are physically contained in a second physical enclosure unit that is external to the first physical enclosure unit.
These and other objects, embodiments, advantages and/or distinctions of the present invention will become readily apparent upon further review of the following specification, associated drawings and appended claims.
A recommended implementation for the fabric interconnect is a high-speed SerDes interconnect, such as multi-lane XAUI. In the preferred solution, a four-lane XAUI interconnect is used. Each of the four lanes can also have the speed varied from 1 Gb/sec (SGMII), XAUI rate (3.125 Gb/sec), and double XAUI (6.25 Gb/sec). The actual number of lanes and variability of speeds of each lane are implementation specific, and not important to the described innovations. Other interconnect technologies can be used that have a means to adaptively change the effective bandwidth, by varying some combination of link speeds and widths. Power consumption of a link is usually related to the delivered bandwidth of the link. By reducing the delivered bandwidth of the link, either through link speed or width, the power consumption of the link can be reduced.
Related application Ser. No. 12/794,996 (incorporated by reference) describes the architecture of a power-optimized, high performance, scalable inter-processor communication fabric.
In a preferred example, the hybrid nodes 102a-n shown in the tree-oriented topology of system 100 in
Note that the tree oriented interconnect fabric of
In more detail, the personality module 200 of
The Ethernet Bridges 203 in
The routing frame is composed of several fields providing sufficient data for the fabric switch 204 of
Related application Ser. No. 12/794,996 (incorporated by reference) disclosed in more detail an Ethernet protocol focused fabric switch. In the related '996 application two primary components are described:
A key attribute of the Fabric Switch, 204 in
The multi-protocol personality module 300 of
As can be seen from the block diagram of
An example of a routing header follows in Table 2, but the fields may vary by implementation:
Since the Fabric Switch 308 makes routing decisions by inspection of only the routing header, and the data payload frame is considered both opaque and invariant, these characteristics can be leveraged to create an extensible set of personality modules. A multi-protocol personality module 300 such as shown in
When using a personality module 300 such as shown in
The Ethernet Bridge personality processor 304 in
Similar to
As disclosed above in reference to the multi-protocol personality module 300 of
The functionality of the Remote Bus personality Module consists of:
The Remote Address translation module 305 converts local addresses steered to the RBFPM to [Remote Node, Remote Node Address]. This is depicted in more detail in
The Bus Bridge 306 of
The multiple layer design of the Bus Bridge 306 is:
Transaction layer
Transfer layer (also known as Transport layer)
Data Link layer
Physical layer
The Physical layer performs transformation and optimization of the physical packet representation to packet size, width, and flit requirements to the fabric switch implementation. This Physical layer and/or the Link layer may actually produce multiple flits corresponding to a single physical bus packet.
The Remote Bus Processor 307 functions in a similar manner to the Ethernet Bridge Personality Processor 304 to add and remove the fabric routing header and transport bus packets from 306 to the fabric switch 308. Additionally, the Remote Bus Processor 307 connects interrupts from Remote Interrupt Manager 303 over the fabric with guaranteed delivery.
In
The transaction flows through the Bus Bridge 306 as illustrated in
The resulting routing frame flows into the fabric switch 308 on Node A, is routed through the intervening fabric (See
Node B's Remote Bus Processor 307 implements the receiving side of in-order and guaranteed delivery in conjunction with the transmitting side. This can include notification of the sender of errors, missing flits, and request for retransmission. The Remote Bus Processor 307 of Node B then strips the routing header, sending the packetized transaction into the Bus Bridge 306. The Bus Bridge module 306 of Node B unpacks the packetized transaction (which may have included collecting multiple flits), and reconstitutes a valid transaction posted to Node B's bus. Any responses to that bus transaction are seen by this subsystem, and sent back to Node A following the same mechanism.
There are several functional and performance issues related to this cache coherency example. First, coherent memory transactions issued by CPUs in node A will not snoop caches on remote nodes to maintain efficiency. Second, incoming remote transactions from a Remote Bus Personality section can be implemented as one-sided cache coherent. This means that incoming loads or stores can optionally be configured to snoop and perform coherency protocols against processor caches. Finally, this provides a powerful, easy to use cache coherent programming mode without the performance and availability problems related to a full CC-NUMA (cache coherent-non-uniform memory access) design.
In many SOC bus infrastructures, interrupts are individual lines that feed into an interrupt controller for the processor(s) such as the Remote Interrupt Manager 303 of
For example, if server A (such as Node N30 of
As another example, an I/O interrupt on server A can be reflected to an interrupt on server B. An I/O controller on server A (like a SATA controller) raises an interrupt line that is being monitored by the Remote Interrupt Manager 303,
Referring to
Each Remote Bus Processor 307 is allocated a range of addresses in physical address space. An exemplary process for the secure mapping of an address range from Server B into Server A's address space is as follows.
In the described examples, DMA engines on both the local (server A) and remote (server B) sides can be used to hardware facilitate data movement in either direction. User's are not constrained to the classic push OR pull data movement model. Further, many SOC bus transaction models have some notion of trust or security zone associated with that bus transaction. As an example, ARM AXI has the notion of TrustZone, where transactions are marked as being in Trusted World or Normal World. The Remote Bus portion in the Personality Module 300 illustrated in
Device drivers running on CPUs in the Server boxes (A, B, C) of
The address maps, both I/O and memory, and interrupt maps are maintained and transmitted transparently across Fabric 608. In this example, the data flow is completely optimized. An example storage block transfer from SATA controller 614/616 of
In
This example requires one additional data movement as compared to the I/O Physicalization example 4, but is far more efficient than a traditional network oriented SAN or NAS remote storage data movement.
The discussion now turns to disassociation of memory (e.g., preferably mutable memory) from a cluster of nodes while enabling those nodes the ability to do full load/store/barrier instructions to a memory pool (e.g., aggregation of memory resources provided at a centralized location) through allocation of memory of the memory pool to the nodes based on workload on a per-node basis. Such implementation is referred to herein as pooled memory functionality. Implementing pooled memory functionality in this manner supports allocation of memory privately on a per node basis and allocation of memory to all or a portion of the nodes in a non-coherent, shared manner. Furthermore, in view of the disclosures made herein, a skilled person will appreciate that remote memory access functionality in accordance with the present invention supports implementation of near shared memory using, for example, HMC (hybrid memory cubes) memory resources and supports implementation of far shared memory over a SoC node fabric using, for example, both HMC and DDR memory resources.
A node cluster architecture 800 is shown in
A plurality of the compute nodes 805 can be provided on a single card (i.e., a compute node card) and a plurality of the memory controller nodes 810 can be provided on a single card (i.e., a memory controller node card). The compute node card and memory controller node card can have identical overall planar dimensions such that both types of cards have a common or identical planar form factor. Each compute node 805 and each memory controller node 810 can have a plurality of SoC units thereon that provide information processing functionality. By definition, a compute node card will be populated more densely with SoC units that will be a memory controller node card. Preferably, but not necessarily, an architecture of the SoC units of the compute node cards is substantially the same or identical to that of the memory controller node cards.
The compute nodes 805 are each provisioned (i.e., configured) with a limited amount of local memory 807 and are packaged together (i.e., integrated with each other) with the goal of optimizing compute density within a given form factor (i.e., maximizing computer density in regard to cost, performance, space, heat generation, power consumption and the like). The memory controller nodes 810 are provisioned with a relatively large amount of local memory and together provide the pooled memory resource at a chassis, rack or cluster level (i.e., to maximizing poled memory in regard to cost, performance, space, heat generation, power consumption and the like for a given form factor). Put differently, a compute node card has insufficient memory resources for enabling intended data computing performance (e.g., data processing throughput) of compute nodes thereof and a memory controller node card has insufficient node CPU resources for enabling intended data computing performance (e.g., put/get and/or load/store utilization) of the pooled memory thereof. In this regard, intended data computing functionality of the server apparatus requires that the server apparatus include at least one computer node card and at least one memory controller card.
Each compute node 805 can be allocated a portion of the pooled memory 820, which then serves as allocated memory to that particular one of the compute nodes 805. In this regard, the pooled memory 820 can be selectively allocated to and be selectively accessed by each one of the nodes (i.e., via pooled memory functionality). As shown in
In view of the disclosures made herein, a skilled person will appreciate that an underlying goal of the node cluster architecture 800 is to provide a fabric attached pool of memory (i.e., pooled memory) that can be flexibly assigned to compute nodes. For example, in the case of a dense node board such as that offered by Calxeda Inc under the trademark EnergyCard, every node of the compute node card (i.e., a plurality of nodes on a single board substrate) has a constrained, small number of DIMMs (e.g., every compute node having a constrained, small no. of DIMMs (e.g., 1)) and requires every node to have a relatively constrained amount of DRAM. (e.g., every compute node to have something 4-8 GB of DRAM). But, in practical system implementations, some nodes will need different memory provisioning for specific requirements thereof (e.g., for Hadoop NameNode functionality, for Memcache functionality, for database functionality).
Pooled memory in accordance with embodiments of the present invention, which is attached to computer nodes though a fabric (i.e., fabric memory pools), support standardized dense node cards such as the Calxeda brand EnergyCard but allows them to be memory provisioned differently. In one specific implementation (shown in
Embodiments of the present invention allow for pooled memory cards to be physically provisioned in a variety of different configurations. In support of these various physical provisioning configurations, pooled memory cards can be provisioned based on DIMM density (e.g., maximized DIMM density) or can be provisioned based on DRAM capacity (e.g., maximized DRAM capacity). In regard physical placement of the pooled memory cards, various rack and chassis positioned are envisioned. In one implementation (i.e., chassis provisioning), all or a portion of the pooled memory cards are configured for maximum DRAM capacity and serve as a chassis fabric memory pool. In another implementation (i.e., rack provisioning), a memory appliance (1 U or 2 U) is fabric connected within the rack using pooled memory cards are configured for maximum DRAM capacity. In another implementation (i.e., end of row provisioning), an entire rack is provided with pooled memory cards and serves as a memory rack that is at the end of a row of racks with computer nodes (i.e., compute racks). In still another implementation (i.e., distributed provisioning), all pooled memory cards are configured for maximum DRAM capacity and Linux NUMA APIs are used to create a distributed far memory pool. Additionally, Linux can even round-robin pages across the NUMA memory pool.
In one embodiment, the functional block diagram 1000 is implemented via components of the multi-protocol personality module 300 discussed above in reference to
In some embodiments of the present invention, the allocation of pooled memory (i.e., memory associated with one or more memory controller nodes) to individual compute nodes can managed by a cluster-level memory manager. This memory manager can be a software entity that is a standalone management entity or that is tightly integrated into other cluster-level management entities such as, for example, a job scheduler, a power management entity, etc. The allocation of the remote memory that is mapped into address space of a compute node to applications running on that computer node can be managed by an operating system (OS) or a virtual memory manager (VMM) using known virtual memory management and memory allocation techniques. For example, the OS and/or VMM can employ non-uniform memory access (NUMA) memory allocation techniques to distinguish between allocation of local memory and remote memory.
In view of the disclosures made herein, a skilled person will recognize that embodiments of the present invention enable various mechanisms of pooled memory functionality to be implemented. Pooled memory functionality is a specific implementation of remote memory access functionality. Examples of these mechanisms of pooled memory functionality include, but are not limited to, remote memory being mapped to physical address space of a node, load/store access being carried out from a CPU of a node, get/put access from user space, and DMA memory content transactions from remote memory to local memory. The benefits of these mechanisms of pooled memory functionality include, but are not limited to, disaggregated memory that can be used across multiple SoC generations, computer nodes can be assigned total memory based on workload characteristics, get/put into remote memory enables low-latency optimizations (e.g., via key/value stores, memcached, etc).
The remote memory architecture embodied within the functional block diagram 1000 can support two primary styles of pooled memory functionality. A first one of these styles of pooled memory functionality relates to shared remote memory. A second one of these styles of pooled memory functionality relates to disaggregated private memory. These use cases differ in whether an allocated portion of the pooled memory (i.e., remote memory) is mapped into the address space of a compute node and in how the allocated portion of the pooled memory is accessed.
The style of pooled memory functionality relating to shared remote memory involves remote memory get/put operations. In this style of pooled memory functionality, processor initiated bus cycles (i.e. load/stores) would not be directly remoted across the fabric. Rather, very low-latency user-space proxies for direct load/stores would be provided. These remote memory accesses represent get/put and/or load/store operations.
In the case pooled memory functionality relating to disaggregated private memory, as shown in
A primary goal of disaggregated private memory is to provide a fabric attached pool of memory (i.e., fabric attached pooled memory) that can be flexibly assigned to compute nodes. Native load/store transactions supported over a fabric. Examples of these native load/store transactions include, but are not limited to, transactions associated with global fabric address space, transactions associated with compute nodes carrying out read/write operations to remote memory, and transactions associated with remote DMA of memory content into physical memory of a compute node. In implementing disaggregated private memory in accordance with embodiments of the present invention, compute nodes will have private memory (e.g., private mutable memory) and can share a pool of fabric accessible memory (e.g., cacheable, non-coherent shared memory). Furthermore, fabric pool memory configured in accordance with embodiments of the present invention can be implemented within a chassis or across a largest possible fabric (e.g., across one or more rack).
Implementations of disaggregated private memory as disclosed herein can be considered as a class of remote NUMA memory (i.e., one-sided cache coherent which is also known as I/O coherent). For example, certain commercially available operating systems (e.g., Linux brand operating systems) have support for NUMA memory in the form of a NUMA subsystem. More specifically, Linux brand operating systems have NUMA awareness such as via numactl (e.g., control NUMA policy for processes or shared memory), Lib numa (e.g., NUMA policy API), and enhanced topology detection. Additionally, malloc-type memory allocation functionality is configured to ensure that the regions of memory that are allocated to a process are as physically close as possible to the core on which the process is executing, which increases memory access speeds. A node cluster architecture configured in accordance with the present invention can be configured to integrate with such a NUMA subsystem for allowing kernel and applications to have control of memory locality without having to expose new APIs and malloc-type memory allocation functionality for increasing memory access speeds.
Implementations of disaggregated private memory as disclosed herein can utilize device controllers (e.g., memory device controllers) that are physically allocated to remote nodes. This type of implementation is exemplified herein in the discussion relating to Example 4 and
The memcached clients 1205A, 1205B each map access information (e.g., a key) directly and reach into the pooled memory 1210 to obtain the data with a direct memory load. In this manner, unlike the traditional memcached approach, there is no networking needed for access memcached data. Each one of the memcached servers 1210a-e hashes into local DRAM and returns the hashed value over TCP/IP or UDP, which serves as the communication protocol between the memcached servers and each one of the memcached clients 1205.
In regard to a specific example in which a cluster of SoC nodes (i.e., including Node A and Node B) that are interconnected by a node interconnect fabric, Node A (e.g., through web server functionality thereof) requests an account lookup for Account #100. Web server request goes through a Memcached client API into a memcached client library with a cache data request for Key ID #100. The memcached client library hashes Key ID #100 to the memcached server that holds that data whereby it hashes to Node B that is providing memcached server functionality. The memcached client library determines that Node A and Node B have a remote memory capable fabric between them (e.g., are configured for providing remote memory access functionality in accordance with the present invention). The memcached client library on Node A performs a server-side hash of Key ID #100 and uses a remote memory access to node B to determine if this data is currently encached and, if so, the memory address that contains the data. In the case where it is determined that the data is currently encached, the memcached client library on Node A directly access the remote cached data from Node B's memory address space (e.g., memory address space of Node B's memcached server functionality). The memcached client library then returns the data to the requesting web server on Node A.
In support of high frequency trading, stock exchange tick data can stream as multicast packets at rates up to 6 MB/sec or more. The tick data can be highly augmented with derived data thereof. A fabric memory pool apparatus is used to store the tick data in one place and accessed by a plurality of trading servers. Referring to the pooled memory server apparatus discussed above in reference to
The underlying premise of message passing interface (MPI) remote memory access (RMA) relates to any allocated memory is private to the MPI process by default. As needed, this allocated private memory can be exposed to other processes as a public memory region. To do this, an MPI process declares a segment of its memory to be part of a window, allowing other processes to access this memory segment using one-sided operations such as PUT, GET, ACCUMULATE, and others. Processes can control the visibility of data written using one-sided operations for other processes to access using several synchronization primitives. Referring to the pooled memory server apparatus discussed above in reference to
MPI 3rd generation (i.e., MPI-3) RMA offers two new window allocation functions. The first new window allocation function is a collective version that can be used to allocate window memory for fast access. The second new window allocation function is a dynamic version which exposes no memory but allows the user to “register” remotely-accessible memory locally and dynamically at each process. Furthermore, new atomic operations, such as fetch-and-accumulate and compare-and-swap offer new functions for well-known shared memory semantics and enable the implementation of lock-free algorithms in distributed memory.
Examples of common PGAS languages include, but are not limited to, Unified Parallel C, Co-Array Fortran, Titanium, X-10, and Chapel. As shown in
Currently, disaggregation of server resources is limited to separating compute resources (e.g., CPU and RAM) from storage via separate chassis that are connected via an interface such as, for example, PCIe or SAS. However, data centers and other types of server operating entities will benefit from disaggregation of CPU resources, storage resources, and memory resources. This will allow server operating entities to replace/update CPU resources, storage resources, and memory resources (i.e., server resources) at their respective lifecycle timeframe without having to replace/update one server resource at the particular lifecycle timeframe of another server resource. Advantageously, embodiments of the present invention can provide for such disaggregation of CPU resources, storage resources, and memory resources. In particular, embodiments of the present invention provide for the disaggregation of RAM (i.e., memory resources) from compute node cards (i.e., CPU resources) so that CPU resources can be replaced/updated as new CPU resources (e.g., processors) are released whereas memory resources (e.g., RAM, non-volatile storage, etc) can remain in use as long as they are efficient and/or effectively functional. To this end, referring to the pooled memory server apparatus discussed above in reference to
As shown in
Pooled memory functionality in accordance with the present invention can be implemented in the form of far memory pools. In such an implementation, pooled memory is shared by a plurality of compute nodes such as those of a compute node chassis configured in accordance with the present invention. The shared memory can be in the form of cache coherent DDR or cache coherent HMC such as that of a memory controller chassis configured in accordance with the present invention. The shared memory is accessed via a fabric that interconnects the computer nodes. Preferably, but not necessarily, the compute nodes are all of a common compute node card such as the Calxeda brand EnergyCard. Each one of the compute nodes can also have respective base memory. In this manner, the compute nodes can have non-coherent, shared memory and, optionally, private mutable memory.
In summary, in view of the disclosures made herein, a skilled person will appreciate that a system on a chip (SOC) refers to integration of one or more processors, one or more memory controllers, and one or more I/O controllers onto a single silicone chip. Furthermore, in view of the disclosures made herein, the skilled person will also appreciate that a SOC configured in accordance with the present invention can be specifically implemented in a manner to provide functionalities definitive of a server. In such implementations, a SOC in accordance with the present invention can be referred to as a server on a chip. In view of the disclosures made herein, the skilled person will appreciate that a server on a chip configured in accordance with the present invention can include a server memory subsystem, a server I/O controllers, and a server node interconnect. In one specific embodiment, this server on a chip will include a multi-core CPU, one or more memory controllers that supports ECC, and one or more volume server I/O controllers that minimally includes Ethernet and SATA controllers. The server on a chip can be structured as a plurality of interconnected subsystems, including a CPU subsystem, a peripherals subsystem, a system interconnect subsystem, and a management subsystem.
An exemplary embodiment of a server on a chip that is configured in accordance with the present invention is the ECX-1000 Series server on a chip offered by Calxeda incorporated. The ECX-1000 Series server on a chip includes a SOC architecture that provides reduced power consumption and reduced space requirements. The ECX-1000 Series server on a chip is well suited for computing environments such as, for example, scalable analytics, webserving, media streaming, infrastructure, cloud computing and cloud storage. A node card configured in accordance with the present invention can include a node card substrate having a plurality of the ECX-1000 Series server on a chip instances (i.e., each a server on a chip unit) mounted on the node card substrate and connected to electrical circuitry of the node card substrate. An electrical connector of the node card enables communication of signals between the node card and one or more other instances of the node card.
The ECX-1000 Series server on a chip includes a CPU subsystem (i.e., a processor complex) that uses a plurality of ARM brand processing cores (e.g., four ARM Cortex brand processing cores), which offer the ability to seamlessly turn on-and-off up to several times per second. The CPU subsystem is implemented with server-class workloads in mind and comes with a ECC L2 cache to enhance performance and reduce energy consumption by reducing cache misses. Complementing the ARM brand processing cores is a host of high-performance server-class I/O controllers via standard interfaces such as SATA and PCI Express interfaces. Table 3 below shows technical specification for a specific example of the ECX-1000 Series server on a chip.
The SoC 2200 includes a node CPU subsystem 2202, a peripheral subsystem 2204, a system interconnect subsystem 2206, and a management subsystem 2208. In this regard, a SoC configured in accordance with the present invention can be logically divided into several subsystems. Each one of the subsystems includes a plurality of operation components therein that enable a particular one of the subsystems to provide functionality thereof. Furthermore, each one of these subsystems is preferably managed as independent power domains.
The node CPU subsystem 2202 of SoC 2200 provides the core CPU functionality for the SoC, and runs the primary user operating system (e.g. Ubuntu Linux). The Node CPU subsystem 2202 comprises a node CPU 2210, a L2 cache 2214, a L2 cache controller 2216, memory controller 2217, and main memory 2219. The node CPU 2210 includes 4 processing cores 2222 that share the L2 cache 2214. Preferably, the processing cores 2222 are each an ARM Cortex A9 brand processing core with an associated media processing engine (e.g., Neon brand processing engine) and each one of the processing cores 2222 can have independent L1 instruction cache and L1 data cache. Alternatively, each one of the processing cores can be a different brand of core that functions in a similar or substantially the same manner as ARM Cortex A9 brand processing core. Each one of the processing cores 2222 and its respective L1 cache is in a separate power domain. Optionally, the media processing engine of each processing core 2222 can be in a separate power domain. Preferably, all of the processing cores 2222 within the node CPU subsystem 2202 run at the same speed or are stopped (e.g., idled, dormant or powered down).
The memory controller 2217 is coupled to the L2 cache 2214 and to a peripheral switch of the peripheral subsystem 2204. Preferably, the memory controller 2217 is configured to control a plurality of different types of main memory (e.g., DDR3, DDR3L, LPDDR2). An internal interface of the memory controller 2217 can include a core data port, a peripherals data port, a data port of a power management unit (PMU) portion of the management subsystem 2208, and an asynchronous 32-bit AHB slave port. The PMU data port is desirable to ensure isolation for some low power states. The asynchronous 32-bit AHB slave port is used to configure the memory controller 2217 and access its registers. The asynchronous 32-bit AHB slave port is attached to the PMU fabric and can be synchronous to the PMU fabric in a similar manner as the asynchronous interface is at this end. In one implementation, the memory controller 2217 is an AXI interface (i.e., an Advanced eXtensible Interface).
The peripheral subsystem 2204 of SoC 2200 has the primary responsibility of providing interfaces that enable information storage and transfer functionality. This information storage and transfer functionality includes information storage and transfer both within a given SoC Node and with SoC Nodes accessibly by the given SoC Node. Examples of the information storage and transfer functionality include, but are not limited to, flash interface functionality, PCIe interface functionality, SATA interface functionality, and Ethernet interface functionality. The peripheral subsystem 2204 can also provide additional information storage and transfer functionality such as, for example, direct memory access (DMA) functionality. Each of these peripheral subsystem functionalities is provided by one or more respective controllers that interface to one or more corresponding storage media (i.e., storage media controllers).
The peripherals subsystem 2204 includes the peripheral switch and a plurality of peripheral controllers for providing the abovementioned information storage and transfer functionality. The peripheral switch can be implemented in the form of a High-Performance Matrix (HPM) that is a configurable auto-generated advanced microprocessor bus architecture 3 (i.e., AMBA protocol 3) bus subsystem based around a high-performance AXI cross-bar switch known as the AXI bus matrix, and extended by AMBA infrastructure components.
The peripherals subsystem 2204 includes flash controllers 2230 (i.e. a first type of peripheral controller). The flash controllers 2230 can provide support for any number of different flash memory configurations. A NAND flash controller such as that offered under the brand name Denali is an example of a suitable flash controller. Examples of flash media include MultiMediaCard (MMC) media, embedded MultiMediaCard (eMMC) media, Secure Digital (SD) media, SLC/MLC+ECC media, and the like. Memory is an example of media (i.e., storage media) and error correcting code (ECC) memory is an example of a type of memory to which the main memory 2217 interfaces (e.g., main memory 2219).
The peripherals subsystem 2204 includes Ethernet MAC controllers 2232 (i.e. a second type of peripheral controller). Each Ethernet MAC controller 2232 can be of the universal 1 Gig design configuration or the 10G design configuration. The universal 1 Gig design configuration offers a preferred interface description. The Ethernet MAC controllers 2232 includes a control register set and a DMA (i.e., an AXI master and an AXI slave). Additionally, the peripherals subsystem 2204 can include an AXI2 Ethernet controller 2233. The peripherals subsystem 2204 includes a DMA controller 2234 (i.e., (i.e. a third type of peripheral controller). DMA functionality is useful only for fairly large transfers. Thus, because private memory of the management subsystem 2208 is relatively small, the assumption is that associated messages will be relatively small and can be handled by an interrupt process. If the management subsystem 2208 needs/wants large data transfer, it can power up the whole system except the cores and then DMA is available. The peripherals subsystem 2204 includes a SATA controller 2236 (i.e. a fourth type of peripheral controller). The peripherals subsystem 2204 also includes PCIe controllers 2238. As will be discussed below in greater detail, a XAUI controller of the peripherals subsystem 2204 is provided for enabling interfacing with other CPU nodes (e.g., of a common node card).
The system interconnect subsystem 2206 is a packet switch that provides intra-node and inter-node packet connectivity to Ethernet and within a cluster of nodes (e.g., small clusters up through integration with heterogeneous large enterprise data centers). The system interconnect subsystem 2206 provides a high-speed interconnect fabric, providing a dramatic increase in bandwidth and reduction in latency compared to traditional servers connected via 1 Gb Ethernet to a top of rack switch. Furthermore, the system interconnect subsystem 2206 is configured to provide adaptive link width and speed to optimize power based upon utilization.
An underlying objective of the system interconnect subsystem 2206 is support a scalable, power-optimized cluster fabric of server nodes. As such, the system interconnect subsystem 2206 has three primary functionalities. The first one of these functionalities is serving as a high-speed fabric upon which TCP/IP networking is built and upon which the operating system of the node CPU subsystem 2202 can provide transparent network access to associated network nodes and storage access to associated storage nodes. The second one of these functionalities is serving as a low-level messaging transport between associated nodes. The third one of these functionalities is serving as a transport for remote DMA between associated nodes.
The system interconnect subsystem 2206 can be connected to the node CPU subsystem 2202 and the management subsystem 2208 through a bus fabric (i.e., Ethernet AXIS) of the system interconnect subsystem 2206. An Ethernet interface of the system interconnect subsystem 2206 can be connected to peripheral interfaces (e.g., interfaces 2230, 2232, 2234, 2238) of the peripheral subsystem 2204. A fabric switch (i.e., a switch-mux) can be coupled between the XAUI link ports of the system interconnect subsystem 2206 and one or more MAC's 2243 of the system interconnect subsystem 2206. The XAUI link ports and MACs (i.e., high-speed interconnect interfaces) enabling the node that comprises the SoC 2200 to be connected to associated nodes each having their own SoC (e.g., identically configured SoCs).
The processor cores 2222 (i.e., A9 cores) of the node CPU subsystem 2202 and management processor 2270 (i.e., M3) of the management subsystem 2208 can address MACs (e.g., MAC 2243) of the system interconnect subsystem 2206. In certain embodiments, the processor cores 2222 of the node CPU subsystem 2202 will utilize a first MAC and second MAC and the management processor 2270 of the management subsystem 2208 will utilize a third MAC. To this end, MACs of the system interconnect subsystem 2206 can be configured specifically for their respective application.
The management subsystem 2208 is coupled directly to the node CPU subsystem 2202 and directly to the to the system interconnect subsystem 2206. An inter-processor communication (IPC) module (i.e., IPCM) of the management subsystem 2208, which includes IPC 2216, is coupled to the node CPU subsystem 2202, thereby directly coupling the management subsystem 2208 to the node CPU subsystem 2202. The management processor 2270 of the management subsystem 2208 is preferably, but not necessarily, an ARM Cortex brand M3 microprocessor. The management processor 2270 can have private ROM and private SRAM. The management processor 2270 can be coupled to shared peripherals and private peripherals of the management subsystem 2208. The private peripherals are only accessible by the management processor, whereas the shared peripherals are accessible by the management processor 2270 and each of the processing cores 2222. Instructions for implementing embodiments of the present invention (e.g., functionalities, processes and/or operations associated with r4emote memory access, pooled memory access, memcache, distributed memory, server resource disaggregation, and the like) can reside in non-transitory memory coupled to/allocated to the management processor 2270.
Additional capabilities arise because the management processor 2270 has visibility into all buses, peripherals, and controllers. It can directly access registers for statistics on all buses, memory controllers, network traffic, fabric links, and errors on all devices without disturbing or even the knowledge of the access by the core processing cores 2222. This allows for billing use cases where statistics can be gathered securely by the management processor without having to consume core processing resources (e.g., the processing cores 2222) to gather, and in a manner that cannot be altered by the core processor 2222.
The management processor 2270 has a plurality of responsibilities within its respective node. One responsibility of the management processor 2270 is booting an operating system of the node CPU 2210. Another responsibility of the management processor 2270 is node power management. Accordingly, the management subsystem 2208 can also be considered to comprise a power management Unit (PMU) for the node and thus, is sometime referred to as such. As discussed below in greater detail, the management subsystem 2208 controls power states to various power domains of the SoC 2200 (e.g., to the processing cores 2222 by regulating clocks). The management subsystem 2208 is an “always-on” power domain, However, the management processor 2270 can turn off the clocks to the management processor 2270 and/or its private and/or shared peripherals to reduce the dynamic power. Another responsibility of the management processor 2270 is varying synchronized clocks of the node CPU subsystem 2202 (e.g., of the node CPU 2210 and a snoop control unit (SCU)). Another responsibility of the management processor 2270 is providing baseboard management control (BMC) and IPMI functionalities including console virtualization. Another responsibility of the management processor 2270 is providing router management. Another responsibility of the management processor 2270 is acting as proxy for the processing cores 2222 for interrupts and/or for network traffic. For example, a generalized interrupt controller (GIC) of the node CPU subsystem 2202 will cause interrupts intended to be received by a particular one of the processing core 2222 to be reflected to the management processor 2270 for allowing the management processor 2270 to wake the particular one of the processing cores 2222 when an interrupt needs to be processed by the particular one of the of the processing cores that is sleeping, as will be discussed below in greater detail. Another responsibility of the management processor 2270 is controlling phased lock loops (PLLs). A frequency is set in the PLL and it is monitored for lock. Once lock is achieved the output is enabled to the clock control unit (CCU). The CCU is then signaled to enable the function. The management processor 2270 is also responsible for selecting the dividers but the actual change over will happen in a single cycle in hardware. Another responsibility of the management processor 2270 is controlling a configuration of a variable internal supply used to supply electrical power to the node CPU subsystem 2202. For example, a plurality of discrete power supplies (e.g., some being of different power supplying specification than others (e.g., some having different power capacity levels)) can be selectively activated and deactivated as necessary for meeting power requirements of the node CPU subsystem 2202 (e.g., based on power demands of the processing cores 2222, the SCU, and/or the controller of the L2 cache 2214). A separate power control mechanism (e.g., switch) can be used to control power supply to each of the processing cores 2222 and separately to the SCU. Another responsibility of the management processor 2270 is managing a real-time-clock (RTC) that exists on a shared peripheral bus of the management subsystem 2208. Another responsibility of the management processor 2270 is managing a watchdog timer on a private peripheral bus of the management subsystem 2208 to aid in recovery from catastrophic software failures. Still another responsibility of the management processor 2270 is managing an off-board EEPROM. The off-board EEPROM is device is used to store all or a portion of boot and node configuration information as well as all or a portion of IPMI statistics that require non-volatile storage. Each of these responsibilities of the management processor 2270 is an operational functionality managed by the management processor 2270. Accordingly, operational management functionality of each one of the subsystem refers to two or more of these responsibilities being managed by the management processor 2270.
As shown in
The application tasks 3302 include, but are not limited to, a boot task 3310, a system management task 3312, a power management task 3314, a serial concentrator task 3316, a frame switch management task 3318 (sometimes called routing management), and a network proxy task 3320. The boot task 3310 provides the function of booting the processing cores 2222 and the management processor 2270. The system management task3 312 provides the function of integrated operation of the various subsystems of the SOC 2200. The power management task 3314 provides the function of managing power utilization of the various subsystems of the SOC 2200. The serial concentrator task 3316 provides the function of managing communication from the other application tasks to a system console. This console may be directly connected to the SOC node via a UART (i.e., a universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter) or it can be connected to another node in the system. The frame switch management task 3318 (sometimes called routing management) is responsible for configuring and managing routing network functionality. As discussed in greater detail below, the network proxy task 3320 maintains network presence of one or more of the processing cores 2222 while in a low-power sleep/hibernation state and to intelligently wake one or more of the processing cores 2222 when further processing is required.
Device drivers 3308 are provided for all of the devices that are controlled by the management processor 2270. Examples of the device drivers 3308 include, but are not limited to, an 12C driver 3322, a SMI driver 3324, a flash driver 3326 (e.g., NAND type storage media), a UART driver 3328, a watchdog time (i.e., WDT) driver 3330, a general purpose input-output (i.e., GPIO) driver 332, an Ethernet driver 3334, and an IPC driver 336. In many cases, these drivers are implemented as simple function calls. In some cases where needed for software portability, however, a device-transparent open/close/read/write type I/O abstraction is provided on top of these functions.
In regard to boot processes, it is well known that multiple-stage boot loaders are often used, during which several programs of increasing complexity sequentially load one after the other in a process of chain loading. Advantageously, however, the node CPU 2210 only runs one boot loader before loading the operating system. The ability for the node CPU 2210 to only run one boot loader before loading the operating system is accomplished via the management processor 2270 preloading a boot loader image into main memory (e.g., DRAM) of the node CPU subsystem before releasing the node CPU 2210 from a reset state. More specifically, the SOC 2200 can be configured to use a unique boot process, which includes the management processor 2270 loading a suitable OS boot loader (e.g., U-Boot) into main memory, starting the node CPU 2210 main OS boot loader (e.g., UEFI or U-Boot), and then loading the OS. This eliminates the need for a boot ROM for the node CPU, a first stage boot loader for the node CPU, and dedicated SRAM for boot of the node CPU.
While the foregoing has been with reference to a particular embodiment of the invention, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes in this embodiment may be made without departing from the principles and spirit of the disclosure, the scope of which is defined by the appended claims.
The present application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/728,308, filed Dec. 27, 2012, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/453,086 filed Apr. 23, 2012, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 12/794,996 filed Jun. 7, 2010 which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/256,723 filed Oct. 30, 2009, all of these applications having a common applicant herewith and being incorporated herein in their entirety by reference.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| 20160239415 A1 | Aug 2016 | US |
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