Patent ID: 9350806
Filing Date: 2016-05-24
CPC Classification: G06F,H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method, in a storage system, for instigating the sending of an acknowledgement response from a host system, comprising: responsive to a storage system controller of a storage system receiving a read request from the host system, storing, by a storage system controller of the storage system, requested data in a buffer of the storage system controller, wherein the host system is configured to use a delayed acknowledgement optimization of a network protocol such that the host system sends an acknowledgement response after receiving a predetermined number of data transfers, wherein the predetermined number is greater than one; initiating, by the storage system controller, sending data transfers from the buffer to the host system via a network connection with the host system; monitoring, by the storage system controller, the buffer of the storage system controller to determine if there is a data transfer pending in the buffer; in response to a determination that there is no data transfer pending in the buffer, determining, by the storage system controller, whether the is an outstanding data transfer, on the network connection with the host system, for which an acknowledgement response has not been received from the host system; and in response to a determination that there is an outstanding data transfer for which an acknowledgement response has not been received, sending, by the storage system controller, an acknowledgement instigation message to the host system to instigate the host system sending an acknowledgement response for the outstanding data transfer, wherein receipt of the acknowledgement instigation message by the host system causes a transmission of the delayed acknowledgement to be triggered on the host system, wherein the buffer is an Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) buffer, and wherein the storage system controller transmits data packets directly from the iSCSI buffer over the network connection to the host system without copying the data packets from the iSCSI buffer to a network protocol buffer.