Patent Application
20080270666
Computer systems for high performance or high-reliability applications are often part of a rack-mount system or blade system. A rack-mount system often requires a large symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) architecture built into rack-mount servers. The SMP architecture allows for high capabilities due to complex application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), crossbars between processors, and extensive cabling between the rack-mount servers.
Blade systems typically comprise a blade enclosure that houses several blade components. The blade enclosure may provide a centralized source for power, cooling, and/or communications for the blade components. This allows the blade components to be modular and specialized to a specific task, such as a server or storage unit.
The invention in one implementation encompasses an apparatus. The apparatus comprises a removable active communication bus. The removable active communication bus comprise at least two blade communication interfaces that are configured to communicatively couple at least two blade components within at least one blade enclosure.
Another implementation of the invention encompasses a method. A removable active communication bus is communicatively coupled with a first blade component. The first blade component is communicatively coupled with at least one second blade component through the removable active communication bus.
A further implementation of the invention encompasses a computer readable storage medium on which is embedded at least one computer program. The at least one computer program comprises a set of instructions for communicatively coupling a removable active communication bus with a first blade component. The at least one computer program comprises a set of instructions for communicatively coupling the first blade component with at least one second blade component through the removable active communication bus.
Features of example implementations of the invention will become apparent from the description, the claims, and the accompanying drawings in which:
Referring to the BACKGROUND section above, the SMP architecture requires a large initial cost for deployment and may have limited potential for future upgrades. As performance requirements increase, an entire rack-mount server may need to be replaced or “scaled up”. The blade systems can be clustered to allow a “scale-out” expansion for increased capabilities with a reduced initial cost for deployment. For example, additional blade enclosures and blade components can be added and linked via passive cables or an interconnect module. However, this approach may be limited by increased latency due to the physical distance between the blade components and the number of components that can be reliably linked to a single electrical output.
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The blade enclosures 104 and 106 in one example are mounted within the rack-mount chassis 102. The blade enclosures 104 and 106 comprise a plurality of slots or bays for receiving blade components, for example, blade component 112. One or more blade components may be mounted within the blade enclosures 104 and 106 to partially or completely fill the bays. In the example of
The blade component 112 may comprise a blade server, blade storage unit, or other blade component. The blade component 112 comprises at least one communication interface 114. The communication interface 114 may be on a front face of the blade component 112, or a rear face of the blade component 112. For example, the communication interface 114 may be communicatively coupled with the passive backplane of the blade enclosure 104 upon insertion of the blade component 112. In another example, a portion of the rear face of the blade component 112 is accessible from a rear of the blade enclosure 104.
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The removable active communication buses 202 and 204 communicatively couple at least two blade components of the plurality of blade components 108 and 110. In a first example, the removable active communication bus 202 communicatively couples at least two of the plurality of blade components 108, for example, through the blade communication interfaces 205. In a second example, the removable active communication bus 202 is communicatively coupled with the removable active communication bus 204 through a communication link 210 between the bus communication interfaces 206 and 208. In this example, the removable active communication buses 202 and 204 cooperate to communicatively couple at least two of the plurality of blade components 108 and 110. Examples of communication links comprise twisted pair cables, fiber optic cables, coaxial cables, parallel cables, and serial cables.
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The removable active communication bus 304 in one example comprises at least one blade communication interface, for example, blade communication interfaces 310. The removable active communication bus 304 is communicatively coupled with the plurality of blade components 108 through one or more communication links 312 between the blade communication interfaces 310 and communication interfaces 314 (analogous to communication interface 114,
The removable active communication bus 306 in one example comprises at least one blade communication interface 322 that is communicatively coupled with the communication interface 308 of the blade enclosure 302 through a communication link 324. This allows the removable active communication bus 306 to communicate with the plurality of blade components 110 within the blade enclosure 302, for example, through the passive backplane of the blade enclosure 302.
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The blade communication interfaces 504 allow for communication with blade components 112 through communication interface 114 (
The CPU 508 in one example processes communications between the blade communication interfaces 504 and the bus communication interfaces 506. For example, the removable active communication bus 502 comprises a removable active backplane. In another example, the CPU 508 manages the blade communication interfaces 504, the bus communication interfaces 506, and the buffer 510. The CPU 508 in one example provides a virtualized interface to a blade component or a plurality of blade components. For example, the blade component 112 may view a communication link to the removable active communication bus 502 as a single endpoint. The CPU 508 may handle duplication or modification of communications sent to the endpoint, for example, to provide a broadcast of communications to a plurality of other blade components. The CPU 508 in one example receives instructions from the recordable data storage medium 512 or another removable active communication bus.
The removable active communication bus 502 in one example is dynamically configurable. For example, communicative couplings, interfaces, and resources managed by the removable active communication bus 502 may be dynamically configured. In a first example, the removable active communication bus 502 provides dynamic configuration of virtualization of the interfaces 504 and 506. In a second example, the removable active communication bus 502 provides dynamic configuration of communicative coupling between the blade components, for example, to provide availability in case of a failure in a communication link. In a third example, the removable active communication bus 502 provides dynamic configuration of redundancy of the communicative coupling between the blade components. In a fourth example, the removable active communication bus 502 provides dynamic configuration of security of the communicative coupling between the blade components.
In the embodiment of
The apparatus 100 in one example comprises a plurality of components such as one or more of electronic components, hardware components, and computer software components. A number of such components can be combined or divided in the apparatus 100. An example component of the apparatus 100 employs and/or comprises a set and/or series of computer instructions written in or implemented with any of a number of programming languages, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art.
The apparatus 100 in one example employs one or more computer-readable signal-bearing media. The computer-readable signal-bearing media store software, firmware and/or assembly language for performing one or more portions of one or more implementations of the invention. Examples of a computer-readable signal-bearing medium for the apparatus 100 comprise the recordable data storage medium 512 of the removable active communication bus 502. The computer-readable signal-bearing medium for the apparatus 100 in one example comprise one or more of a magnetic, electrical, optical, biological, and atomic data storage medium. For example, the computer-readable signal-bearing medium comprise floppy disks, magnetic tapes, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, hard disk drives, and electronic memory.
The steps or operations described herein are just for example. There may be many variations to these steps or operations without departing from the spirit of the invention. For instance, the steps may be performed in a differing order, or steps may be added, deleted, or modified.
Although example implementations of the invention have been depicted and described in detail herein, it will be apparent to those skilled in the relevant art that various modifications, additions, substitutions, and the like can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention and these are therefore considered to be within the scope of the invention as defined in the following claims.
