JPH04245357A - Data transfer system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for increasing the efficiency of data transfer between computers in an information communication network.

0002

[Prior Art] When transmitting and receiving data, data is copied between a computer and a communication control device, so the communication control device
Conventionally, methods such as having an MA function and transferring data with a host computer have been used. However, the load on the main processor due to buffer management in the main memory of the upper computer has a large impact on the overall system throughput, and NTT Research Practical Application Report Vol. No. 3 (1989
)pp. This is the data buffer management function described in No. 249-257. In addition to the DMA transfer function, the communication control device also handles the data buffer management function of the main memory of the host computer, allowing the host system to set data transmission, accept data reception, and accept requests for buffer replenishment and return. This means that the user is freed from buffer management processing except for .

0003

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] The technique according to the above-mentioned known example distributes the load of managing data buffers in the main memory of a host computer to the communication control device when data is copied between a computer and a communication control device. This aims to reduce the load on the main processor and improve overall data transfer performance. However, this technology only distributes the load of buffer management when copying data between a computer and a communication control device, and the occurrence of redundant data copying between a computer and a communication control device itself becomes the biggest bottleneck in performance. The problem was that no consideration was given to the fact that Conventional redundant data transfer means are as follows.

[0004] For example, a computer that receives a file transfer request temporarily reads the file from the disk where the file is stored into the main memory. Copy the file read into the main memory to the memory of the communication control device and send it to the other party. On the file receiving side, the data is received in the memory on the communication control device, stored in the main memory, and then stored on the disk from there. Data cannot be exchanged directly between the memory of the communication control device and the disk on either the sending or receiving side. This applies not only to disks but also to all I/Os (printers, videos, etc.). The fact that data cannot be exchanged directly between the I/O and the communication control device has an adverse effect on data transfer performance between computers, particularly on response.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above problems and provide a highly efficient computer data transfer system.

[0006]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the shared memory on the communication control device is allocated to the system space rather than the I/O space on the memory map of the main processor.

Furthermore, in order to equalize the positioning of the main memory and the communication control device, the communication control device, which is normally connected to the I/O system bus, is connected on a high-speed memory bus.

Furthermore, the capacity of the shared memory on the communication control device is increased so that it can also serve as the main memory.

[0009]

[Effect] The main processor of the host computer can now treat the shared memory on the communication control unit in the same way as main memory, so when sending I/O data to the network, the main memory is Data temporary storage and main memory─
Data can be transferred directly from I/O to the communication control device without copying data between shared memories. Even when data is received from the network, it can be stored on a disk or displayed on a computer display without going through the main memory.

0010

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

[Embodiment 1] FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an example of an information communication network system according to the present invention. This system includes multiple computers (101A to 101C), and each computer has a communication control device (102A to 101C).
2C) to the network 103.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the hardware configuration of a conventional computer. The computer is the main processor 2
01 and main memory 202, and a memory bus 2 that connects them.
03, a system bus 205 to which the communication control device 102 and I/O 206 are connected, and a bus controller (BUSC) 204 that arbitrates between the memory bus and the system bus. The internal bus of the computer is divided into a memory bus 203 and a system bus 205. The memory bus 203 is a bus synchronized with the processor clock for the main processor 201 to execute instructions at high speed, and the system bus 205 is a bus for various I/Os. It is a bus that is unaffected by changes in processor type and clock for connection.

[0013] Conventionally, the communication control device 102
Like the device 206, it was connected to the system bus and controlled data transmission and reception with the network 103. Therefore, data is received from the network 103 and the I/O device 20
In the case of displaying data on a display, which is one of 6, the data is transferred from the reception buffer memory on the communication control device 102 to the main memory 202, and from there again to the display memory on the system bus 205. The procedure was as follows. This is the main processor 20
This is because the memory map of No. 1 has a form as shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 schematically shows the memory map of the main processor. The main memory on the memory bus is allocated to the user/system space, and the I/O memory of the communication control unit and others is allocated to the I/O space.

A feature of the present invention is that the communication control device memory allocated to this I/O space is allocated to the user/system space like the main memory, and when data to be input/output via the network is transferred to the I/O. , it eliminates the performance disadvantage of copying once to main memory and then copying again as in the past. In order to realize this feature, the hardware configuration is shown in FIG. In FIG. 4, the communication control device 102, which was conventionally connected to the system bus 205, is connected to the memory bus 203. This places the shared memory on the communication control device 102 in the same position as the main memory 202.

FIG. 5 shows functional blocks of such a communication control device 102. The communication control device 102 includes a host computer interface unit 501 that controls the interface with the host computer, a processor 502 that executes communication control processing, a shared memory 503 that is accessible from both the main processor of the computer and the processor 502,
It consists of a line control unit 504 that controls data input/output with the network 103. The shared memory 504 is treated similarly to the main memory of a computer.

According to this embodiment, since the shared memory on the communication control device is handled in the same way as the main memory of a computer, input/output data from/to the network is transferred between the communication control device and the I/O device. Since data can be exchanged directly without going through the main memory, it is possible to improve the efficiency of data transfer between computers.

[Modification 1 of Embodiment 1] The hardware configuration of Embodiment 1 is as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, but the capacity of the shared memory portion in FIG. 5 is increased, and the conventional main memory is Rather than adding a communication control device later to a computer that already has a computer or main processor, the communication control device is essential to the computer, and its shared memory is considered to be the main memory, as shown in FIG. Although this embodiment is a modification of the first embodiment, it is effective considering that network connections have become essential for computers and the capacity of memory chips is steadily increasing. Data transfer between computers can be obtained.

[0019]

[Effect of the invention] Data transfer between computers according to the present invention is
Since it is executed in the manner described above, the effects described below are produced.

From the perspective of the main processor of the host computer, the shared memory on the communication control device can be treated in the same way as main memory, so when data on I/O is sent to the network, the main memory system space from I/O is Data can be moved directly from the I/O to the shared memory instead of two data moves, such as temporarily storing the data in the main memory and moving the data between the main memory and the shared memory. Conversely, even when data is received from the network, it is possible to transfer the data to I/O, such as storing it on a disk or displaying it on a computer display, without passing through the main memory.

[0021] Due to the above-mentioned specific effects, highly efficient data transfer can be provided to a computer.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a configuration example of an information communication network system.

FIG. 2 is an example of the configuration of conventional computer hardware.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a memory map.

FIG. 4 is a configuration example of computer hardware to which the data transfer method is applied.

FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram of a communication control device.

FIG. 6 is a modification of the computer hardware configuration to which the data transfer method is applied.

[Explanation of symbols]

101... Computer, 102... Communication control device, 103... Network, 201... Main processor, 202... Main memory,
203...Memory bus, 204...Bus controller (BU
SC), 205...system bus, 206...I/O device,
501...Upper interface unit, 502...Processor,
503...Shared memory, 504...Line control unit, 601...Communication control device and main memory.

Claims (3)

[Claims] Claim 1: In a computer with a hardware configuration in which a communication control device is connected to a computer internal bus to which a main processor, main memory, and various I/Os are connected, the shared memory on the communication control device is used as the main memory. Similarly, by allocating it on the system space, when transferring data via the network, the shared memory on the communication control unit and other I/O
A data transfer method characterized in that data is transferred between memory without performing memory-to-memory data copy that temporarily stores data in system space. 2. When the hardware configuration of the computer has a multi-stage computer bus and is divided into a high-speed memory bus dedicated to communication between the main processor and main memory, and a system bus for I/O, a communication control device is provided. The data transfer method according to claim 1, wherein the data transfer method is connected to the high-speed memory bus. 3. In the hardware configuration of the computer,
2. The data transfer system according to claim 1, wherein the shared memory capacity on the communication control device and the main memory are integrated.