Stateless Fibre Channel Sequence Acceleration for Fibre Channel Traffic Over Ethernet

Abstract

A method for offloading Fibre Channel transmit data in an I/O operation. The transmit data includes Fibre Channel sequences, each Fibre Channel sequence includes multiple frames. The method includes generating a single transmit sequence request descriptor for transmitting all of the plurality of frames; creating an Ethernet header, a FCoE encapsulation header, and a Fibre Channel header for each frame in response to information in the transmit sequence request descriptor, creating start of frame and end of frame delimiters; inserting data into each frame; computing Fibre Channel CRC and Ethernet FCS for each frame; and transmitting the plurality of frames over a network. In each of the plurality of frames, the Ethernet header precedes the FCoE encapsulation header, which precedes the Fibre Channel header, which precedes the data. The data is followed by the Fibre Channel CRC, which is followed by the Ethernet FCS.

1 - 6 . (canceled) 
     
     
         7 . A network interface device comprising:
 an FCoE encapsulation module that receives a single request for one or more data sequences, the FCoE encapsulation module being operable to encapsulate the one or more data sequences to generate one or more FCoE frames, to the one or more FCoE frames comprising a transmit sequence descriptor associated with the one or more data sequences, the transmit sequence descriptor comprising a sequence size of the one or more data sequences; and   a Fibre Channel checksum offload module operable to add a checksum to each of the one or more FCoE frames, the Fibre Channel checksum offload module in communication with the FCoE encapsulation module.   
     
     
         8 - 35 . (canceled) 
     
     
         36 . The network interface device of  claim 7 , wherein the network interface device comprises an Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) operable to transmit and receive FCoE communication. 
     
     
         37 . The network interface device of claim  8 , wherein the Ethernet NIC comprises the FCoE encapsulation module. 
     
     
         38 . The network interface device of  claim 7 , wherein the network interface device comprises a converged network adapter (CNA) operable to transmit and receive both FCoE and non-FCoE communications. 
     
     
         39 . The network interface device of  claim 7 , wherein the transmit sequence descriptor comprises Ethernet header information. 
     
     
         40 . The network interface device of  claim 7 , wherein the transmit sequence descriptor comprises Fibre Channel header information. 
     
     
         41 . The network interface device of  claim 7 , wherein the transmit sequence descriptor comprises a frame size of each of the plurality of data frames. 
     
     
         42 . The network interface device of  claim 7 , wherein the transmit sequence descriptor comprises frame delimiter information. 
     
     
         43 . A method for performing transmit sequence offloading comprising:
 receiving a single request for one or more data sequences;   separating the one or more data sequences into one or more data frames;   generating one or more FCoE frames by encapsulating the one or more data frames;   generating a transmit descriptor for transmitting the one or more FCoE frames associated with the one or more data sequences, wherein the transmit descriptor comprises a sequence size of the one or more data sequences; and   adding a checksum to each of the one or more FCoE frames according to information in the transmit descriptor.   
     
     
         44 . The method of  claim 43 , wherein the transmit descriptor comprises Ethernet header information. 
     
     
         45 . The method of  claim 43 , wherein the transmit descriptor comprises Fibre Channel header information. 
     
     
         46 . The method of  claim 43 , wherein the transmit descriptor comprises a frame size of each of the plurality of data frames. 
     
     
         47 . The method of  claim 43 , wherein the transmit descriptor comprises frame delimiter information. 
     
     
         48 . A Network Interface Card (NIC) comprising:
 a processing unit comprising an offload engine, the processing unit operable to:
 receive a single request for one or more data sequences; 
 separate the one or more data sequences into a plurality of data frames; 
 generate a plurality of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) frames by encapsulating the plurality of data frames; 
 generate a transmit descriptor for transmitting the plurality of FCoE frames, wherein the transmit descriptor comprises a sequence size of the one or more data sequences; and 
 adding a checksum to each of the plurality of FCoE frames. 
   
     
     
         49 . The NIC of  claim 48 , wherein the transmit descriptor comprises Ethernet header information. 
     
     
         50 . The NIC of  claim 48 , wherein the transmit descriptor comprises Fibre Channel header information. 
     
     
         51 . The NIC of  claim 48 , wherein the transmit descriptor comprises a frame size of each of the plurality of data frames. 
     
     
         52 . The NIC of  claim 48 , wherein the transmit descriptor comprises frame delimiter information. 
     
     
         53 . The NIC of  claim 48 , wherein the NIC comprises a Fibre Channel transmit sequence offload module. 
     
     
         54 . The NIC of  claim 48 , wherein the NIC comprises a converged network adapter (CNA) operable to transmit and receive both FCoE and non-FCoE communications.