Switch and network bridge apparatus

Abstract

A PCI Express switch which connects a plurality of peripheral devices to an arbitrary one of a plurality of CPUs through an Ethernet is constituted by a plurality of upstream and downstream PCI Express-network bridges, an Ethernet switch, and a system manager. Each of the upstream and downstream PCI Express-network bridges includes a PCI Express adapter which terminates a link of a PCI Express bus, a network adapter which terminates a link to the Ethernet switch, and a control unit which encapsulates a TLP in a frame, the destination of which is a MAC address of a bridge to which the destination is connected to transmit and receive the frame. Because the switch according to the present invention comprising a plurality of upstream PCI Express-network bridges and a plurality of downstream PCI Express-network bridges connected to the plurality of upstream PCI Express network bridges through a network is equivalent to a conventional PCI Express switch, it is needless to change a conventional PCI software.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional PCI Express switch network;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a conventional PCI Express switch;

FIG. 3A is a block diagram of an upstream PCI-PCI bridge in a conventional PCI Express switch;

FIG. 3B is a block diagram of a downstream PCI-PCI bridge in a conventional PCI Express switch;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an ASI network;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a route complex side PCI Express-ASI bridge of the ASI network;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a downstream PCI-PCI bridge in a route complex side PCI Express-ASI bridge;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a peripheral device side PCI Express-ASI bridge of the ASI network;

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of an upstream PCI-PCI bridge in the peripheral device side PCI Express-ASI bridge;

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 10A is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of an upstream PCI Express-Ethernet bridge;

FIG. 10B is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of a downstream PCI Express-Ethernet bridge;

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a configuration of a TLP encapsulating table;

FIG. 12 is a flow chart showing a schematic operation of a first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 13A is a flow chart showing an operation performed when the upstream PCI Express-Ethernet bridge receives a TLP;

FIG. 13B is a flow chart showing an operation performed when the upstream PCI Express-Ethernet bridge receives an Ethernet frame;

FIG. 14A is a flow chart showing an operation performed when the downstream PCI Express-Ethernet bridge receives an Ethernet frame;

FIG. 14B is a flow chart showing an operation performed when the downstream PCI Express-Ethernet bridge receives a TLP;

FIG. 15A is a flow chart showing an operation performed when the upstream PCI Express-Ethernet bridge receives a control Ethernet frame from a system manager;

FIG. 15B is a flow chart showing an operation performed when the downstream PCI Express-Ethernet bridge receives a control Ethernet frame from the system manager;

FIG. 16 is a block diagram of another embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 17 is a block diagram of still another embodiment of the present invention.

Claims

1. A switch comprising: a plurality of upstream PCI Express-network bridges;a plurality of downstream PCI Express-network bridges; anda network connecting said plurality of upstream PCI Express-network bridges and said plurality of downstream PCI Express-network bridge, whereineach of the upstream PCI Express-network bridge and the downstream PCI Express-network bridge includes a PCI Express adapter which terminates a link of a PCI Express bus, a network adapter which terminates a link to the network, and a control unit which is arranged between the PCI Express adapter and the network adapter and encapsulates a TLP in a frame of the link, the destination of which is a physical address of a bridge to which the destination is connected.

2. The switch according to claim 1, said bridge further comprising a configuration register which is standardized by PCI-SIG, whereby Configuration Read/Write TLP is accessed, so that the system regards the switch as a conventional PCI Express switch.

3. The switch according to claim 2, wherein the control unit detects a destination of a TLP received by the PCI Express adapter, encapsulates a TLP, the destination of which is to be transmitted to the network in a frame of the link, the destination of which is a physical address of the bridge to which the destination is connected to transmit the frame to the network through the network adapter, detects a destination of a TLP obtained by decapsulating the frame received by the network adapter, and transmits a TLP, the destination of which is to be transmitted to the PCI Express bus to the PCI Express bus through the PCI Express adapter.

4. The switch according to claim 3, wherein the control unit includes a PCI Express configuration register, a TLP encapsulating table which holds a physical address corresponding to a destination of a TLP, a TLP encapsulating unit which encapsulates the TLP in the frame by using the physical address held in the TLP encapsulating table in accordance with the destination, a decapsulating unit which decapsulates the TLP from the frame, a TLP transfer logic which transfers the TLPs output from the PCI Express adapter and the decapsulating unit to the destination with reference to the PCI Express configuration register, and a frame transfer logic which transfers the frames output from the network adapter and the TLP encapsulating unit to the destination.

5. The switch according to claim 4, wherein the control unit further includes a PCI Express-network bridge control logic which detects destination information allocated to a peripheral device from a TLP flowing to re-construct a PCI Express space and registers a correspondence between the detected destination information and the physical address of the bridge to which the peripheral device is connected in the TLP encapsulating table.

6. The switch according to claim 1, wherein the network is an Ethernet®.

7. The switch according to claim 1, comprising: a manager unit which manages a connection between a specific upstream PCI Express-network bridge and a specific downstream PCI Express-network bridge.

8. A network bridge apparatus comprising: a PCI Express adapter which terminates a link of a PCI Express bus; a network adapter which terminates a link to a network; and a control unit which is arranged between the PCI Express adapter and the network adapter and encapsulates a TLP in a frame of the link, the destination of which is a physical address of a bridge to which the destination is connected to transmit and receive the frame.

9. The network bridge apparatus according to claim 8 further comprising a configuration register which is standardized by PCI-SIG, whereby Configuration Read/Write TLP is accessed, so that the system regards the switch as a conventional PCI Express switch.

10. The network bridge apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the control unit detects a destination of a TLP received by the PCI Express adapter, encapsulates a TLP, the destination of which is to be transmitted to the network in a frame of the link, the destination of which is a physical address of the bridge to which the destination is connected to transmit the frame to the network through the network adapter, detects a destination of a TLP obtained by decapsulating the frame received by the network adapter, and transmits a TLP, the destination of which is to be transmitted to the PCI Express bus to the PCI Express bus through the PCI Express adapter.

11. The network bridge apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the control unit includes a PCI Express configuration register, a TLP encapsulating table which holds a physical address corresponding to a destination of a TLP, a TLP encapsulating unit which encapsulates the TLP in the frame by using the physical address held in the TLP encapsulating table in accordance with the destination, a decapsulating unit which decapsulates the TLP from the frame, a TLP transfer logic which transfers the TLPs output from the PCI Express adapter and the decapsulating unit to the destination with reference to the PCI Express configuration register, and a frame transfer logic which transfers the frames output from the network adapter and the TLP encapsulating unit to the destination.

12. The network bridge apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the control unit further includes a PCI Express-network bridge control logic which detects destination information allocated to a peripheral device from a TLP flowing to re-construct a PCI Express space and registers a correspondence between the detected destination information and the physical address of the bridge to which the peripheral device is connected in the TLP encapsulating table.

13. The network bridge apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the network is an Ethernet®.

14. A program product which causes a computer to function as: a PCI Express adapter which terminates a link of a PCI Express bus; a network adapter which terminates a link to a network; and a control unit which is arranged between the PCI Express adapter and the network adapter and encapsulates a TLP in a frame of the link, the destination of which is a physical address of a bridge to which the destination is connected to transmit and receive the frame.

15. The program product according to claim 14, wherein the control unit detects a destination of a TLP received by the PCI Express adapter, encapsulates a TLP, the destination of which is to be transmitted to the network in a frame of the link, the destination of which is a physical address of the bridge to which the destination is connected to transmit the frame to the network through the network adapter, detects a destination of a TLP obtained by decapsulating the frame received by the network adapter, and transmits a TLP, the destination of which is to be transmitted to the PCI Express bus to the PCI Express bus through the PCI Express adapter.

16. The program product according to claim 15, wherein the control unit includes a PCI Express configuration register, a TLP encapsulating table which holds a physical address corresponding to a destination of a TLP, a TLP encapsulating unit which encapsulates the TLP in the frame by using the physical address held in the TLP encapsulating table in accordance with the destination, a decapsulating unit which decapsulates the TLP from the frame, a TLP transfer logic which transfers the TLPs output from the PCI Express adapter and the decapsulating unit to the destination with reference to the PCI Express configuration register, and a frame transfer logic which transfers the frames output from the network adapter and the TLP encapsulating unit to the destination.

17. The program product according to claim 16, wherein the control unit further includes a PCI Express-network bridge control logic which detects destination information allocated to a peripheral device from a TLP flowing to re-construct a PCI Express space and registers a correspondence between the detected destination information and the physical address of the bridge to which the peripheral device is connected in the TLP encapsulating table.

18. An inter-bus connecting method wherein a first PCI Express bus is connected to a network through the network bridge apparatus according to claim 8, and a second PCI Express bus is connected to the network through the network bridge apparatus according to claim 8.