JP2001344190A - Switch system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a switch system capable of easily grasping the load condition of all of fabric ports and providing the effective information on the system construction. SOLUTION: This switch system is provided with hosts 102a-102d having a function for requesting the statistical information including the load condition to the fabric in a frame form and the fabrics 101a-101f having a function for responding to the corresponding frame request with the statistical information of the own device in a frame form. When carrying out the application, the host sends the information request frame to a fabric device group, of which existence is not seen from the OS, through a host terminal 100a having a communicating means capable of transmitting a frame while directly controlling the NIC of the host device recognizing the existence of each fabric on a fiber channel protocol. An operator can grasp the load condition of the system in an early time on the basis of the extracted statistical information inside of the information response frame generated by the responding fabric.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a switch system for performing frame transfer using a fiber channel protocol.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a means for obtaining information when a system is added or reconfigured, a fabric group cannot be recognized from a host device to investigate a system load condition. SNM
There is only a means of collecting statistical information using an existing LAN such as P.

[0003]

However, with an increase in the scale of the system, the number of connected devices has increased, and the importance of reducing the load on the existing LAN has been gradually regarded as important. Along with this, it was not easy to grasp the load status of the entire system required by the operator without affecting networks such as the existing LAN of the large-scale system, and it was difficult to obtain effective information for system construction. .

[0004] In view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a switch system which can easily grasp the load status of all fabric ports and can provide effective information for system construction.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, a switch system according to the first aspect of the present invention comprises:
A host device having a function of transmitting an information request frame for requesting statistical information including a load state in a frame format, and a function of responding to the host device in a frame format with the statistical information of the host device in response to the frame request. In a switch system including a plurality of fabric devices having a function of switching frame transfer, the host-side network recognizing the existence of each fabric device on a fiber channel protocol with respect to the plurality of fabric devices A host terminal having communication means for directly controlling an interface card to transmit and receive a frame is provided, and the information request frame is transmitted from the host device via the host terminal.

In the switch system according to the second aspect of the present invention, in the switch system according to the first aspect, each of the fabric devices has a unique identifier, and is mounted on the host device from the host terminal. For the fabric device specified by directly controlling the network interface card to be
When the information request frame is sent from the host device, the fabric device compares the destination identifier of the received frame with the identifier of the own device, and in the same case and by using a specific field in the frame. When the information request frame is recognized, statistical information indicating the load status in the own device is collected as the information response frame, a frame including the information is generated, and the frame is returned to the transmission destination host device. And

[0007]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram of a switch system according to an embodiment of the present invention, which is configured as a switch system in which six fabric devices each having eight ports are connected.

[0008] The switch system of the present embodiment has a function of requesting statistical information including the load status from the fabric in a frame format to the host devices (0) 102a to 102a.
(3) 102d and a plurality of fabric devices (1) 101a to (5) each having a function of responding to the frame request with statistical information of its own fabric in a frame format.
101f.

In this embodiment, a network interface card (hereinafter, referred to as a host device) that recognizes the presence of each fabric device on the Fiber Channel protocol for a group of fabric devices whose presence is not visible from the OS when the application is executed. , NIC)
An information request frame is transmitted from the host via the host terminal 100a having a communication means capable of directly controlling the frame 100b and transmitting and receiving the frame. Then, based on the collected statistical information in the information response frame generated by the fabric device responding to it, it is possible for the operator to grasp the load status of the system at an early stage, and to provide information necessary for system expansion and system reconfiguration. It is characterized by doing.

As shown in FIG. 1, a fabric device designated by directly controlling a NIC 100b mounted on a host device 102a from a host terminal 100a (an operator fixedly identifies an identifier (SW-ID) of each fabric device in advance. An information request frame is transmitted from the host device. Then, the fabric device compares the received frame with its own fabric identifier based on the transmission destination identifier of the received frame. The characteristic function of the present embodiment is realized by collecting statistical information indicating the load status in the device, generating a frame including the statistical information, and returning the frame to the destination host device.

Each of the fabric devices (1) to (5)
The identifier SW-ID is, for example, 0x0100
xx, 0x0101xx, 0x0102xx, 0x01
03xx, 0x0104xx, and 0x0105xx.

Next, the configuration shown in FIG. 1 will be specifically described. The host device (0) 102a is in port 0 of the fabric device (0) 101a, the host device (1) 102b is in port 3, the host device (2) 102c is in port 0 of the fabric device (1) 101b, Port 3 is the host device (3) 102d, and port 4 of the fabric device (4) 101e is the disk (0) 103a.
However, the disk (1) 103b is in the port 5 and the port 6
Disk (2) 103c, disk (3) 103d in port 7, disk (4) 103e in port 4 of fabric (5) 101f, disk (5) 103f in port 5, and port 6 Has a disk (6) 1
03g, and the disk (7) 103h is connected to the port 7.

The fabric device (2) 101c and the fabric (3) 101d are not connected to the host device or the disk but to another fabric, and the host terminal 100a is connected to the host device (0) 1.
It has a function of directly controlling the NIC 100b of the 02a to transmit and receive frames.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the internal configuration of the fabric device of the present embodiment. In the frame receiving unit 201 of the fabric device, the comparator 205 compares D_ID, which is the identifier of the connection destination port, with SW_ID 204, which is the identifier of the fabric device of the own device, from the header information of the received frame. As a result, if they match and the information request frame recognizing unit 203 recognizes the information request frame as the information request frame from the payload information in the received frame, the fabric device determines that the information request frame addressed to its own fabric device is The response frame generation unit 206 recognizes the header information (S_I) in the frame by the statistical information table 202 and the frame reception unit 201.
D), an information response frame is generated and transmitted to the transmission source of the information request frame.

The operation of the embodiment will be described below. The operator directly controls the NIC 100b mounted on the host device (0) 102a from the host terminal 100a in FIG. 1 and applies the present invention to the fabric device designated using the identifier of each fabric that can be known in advance in the system. When the transmission of the information request frame is instructed, the NIC 100b of the host device (0) 102a transmits the information request frame FA1. As shown in FIG. 2, the fabric device (0) 101a that has received the frame checks the transmission destination identifier in the frame reception unit 201, and checks the destination identifier for the ports 0 to 7 in the fabric device (0) 101a.
If the information request frame is indicated by the payload in the received frame, the fabric device (0) 101a refers to the information of all the ports in its own fabric device from the statistical information table and refers to the host (0). ) 10
An information response frame FA2 is transmitted to 2a.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 1, the fabric device (0) 101a receives the information request frame FB1 from the host device (1) 101b, and checks the transmission destination identifier in the frame receiving unit 201 in FIG. The identifier is the port 0 in the fabric device (0) 101a.
If none of the above, the fabric device (0) 10
1a transmits the information request frame FB1 to, for example, the fabric device (3) 101d in the same manner as the normal data frame routing. Similarly to the above, if the fabric device (3) 101d checks the transmission destination identifier and is one of the ports 0 to 7 in the own device fabric device and indicates the information request frame in the payload of the received frame. The fabric device (3) 101d refers to the information of all the ports in its own fabric device from the statistical information table and transmits the information response frame FB2 to the host (1) 102b.

Hereinafter, similarly, for example, the host device (2) 10
The information request frame FC1 transmitted from the fabric device (1) 101b and the fabric device (2) 10
If it is not the target in 1c, it is routed as shown in FIG. 1, and if the fabric device (4) 101e is the target of the information request frame FC1, the fabric device (4)
101e, the same processing as described above is performed, and the information response frame F
C2 is transmitted, and the load status of the disk (0) 103a, the disk (1) 103b, the disk (2) 103c, and the disk (3) 103d is grasped by the operator.

The above operation makes it possible for an operator to obtain statistical information of all fabric devices in the present switch system. That is, in a switch system connected via a fabric device, a means for receiving and transmitting statistical information data relating to the load condition between the host terminal and the fabric device which makes it easy to grasp the load condition of the entire system is provided through a normal data transfer path. Used to provide.

As described above, the means for collecting the statistical information even when using the normal data transfer path is provided, so that the operator can load all the fabric ports in the switch system at a timing according to the job execution status. The situation can be grasped. In other words, the existing L
The load status of the entire system requested by the operator can be obtained without affecting the network such as the AN, and it is possible to provide effective information for constructing the system.

[0020]

As described above in detail, according to the switch system of the present invention, the load status of the entire system requested by the operator can be obtained without affecting the existing network such as a large-scale LAN. Become like This makes it possible to detect a port failure early in the system construction and in the counting state of the error frame count of the collected statistical information, and to provide information effective in preventive maintenance.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram of a switch system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an internal configuration of the fabric device according to the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 101a to 101f Fabric device 102a to 102d Host device 103a to 103h Disk 201 Frame receiving unit 202 Statistical information table 203 Information request frame recognizing unit 204 Own device fabric device identifier 205 Comparator 206 Response frame generating unit

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A host device having a function of transmitting an information request frame for requesting statistical information including a load state in a frame format, and a statistical information of the host device in a frame format in response to a frame request from the host device. In a switch system including a plurality of fabric devices having a function of switching the frame transfer together with a function of responding, the presence of each fabric device on a fiber channel protocol is recognized for the plurality of fabric devices. The host-side network interface
A switch system comprising: a host terminal having communication means for directly controlling a card to transmit and receive a frame; and transmitting the information request frame from the host device via the host terminal. 2. Each of the fabric devices has a unique identifier. The host device directly controls the network interface card mounted on the host device and designates the fabric device. When the information request frame is transmitted from the host device, the fabric device compares the transmission destination identifier of the received frame with the identifier of the own device, and when the same is determined and the identification within the frame is performed. When the information request frame is recognized by the field, statistical information indicating the load status in the own device is collected as the information response frame, a frame including the information is generated, and the frame is returned to the transmission destination host device. The switch system according to claim 1, wherein: