Patent ID: 7929565
Filing Date: 2011-04-19
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for emulating Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) behavior over an Ethernet switching fabric comprising: encapsulating a PCIe packet within an Ethernet packet to provide an Ethernet encapsulated PCIe packet; and, routing the Ethernet encapsulated PCIe packet within the Ethernet switching fabric via information included within the Ethernet packet; and wherein the PCIe packet conforms to a PCIe architecture and the Ethernet packet conforms to an Ethernet architecture; the PCIe architecture comprises a plurality of virtual channels; the Ethernet architecture comprises a plurality of virtual local area networks; and, the encapsulating further comprises mapping the plurality of virtual channels to the plurality of virtual local area networks; wherein the PCIe packet comprises traffic class facilities; and, the encapsulating further comprises emulating the traffic class facilities within the Ethernet encapsulated PCIe packet; wherein the emulating further comprises: mapping the PCIe traffic class facilities to Ethernet user priority levels; wherein each of the plurality of virtual channels comprises one or more traffic classes; and, the plurality of virtual channels provide an internal arbitrated buffering scheme to implement traffic class capability.