Patent ID: 6418478
Filing Date: 2002-07-09
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
A communication system having an origination storage device, a destination storage device, and a data pipeline apparatus for transferring data from the origination storage device to the destination storage device, the data pipeline apparatus comprising:a dedicated memory associated with both the origination storage device and the destination storage device having a pool of buffers dedicated to carrying data from the origination storage device to the destination storage device; a master control module for registering and initiating processes associated with the data transfer apparatus, the processes including: a first stage collection process that allocates a sequence of buffers from the pool of buffers located in the dedicated memory, the sequence of buffers being locked against further allocation until freed by the process to which the sequence of buffers are assigned; at least one restore process that stores the data resident in the sequence of buffers in the destination storage device and frees the sequence of buffers so that they may be reallocated; and a network control module that is responsive to the master control module, the network control module initiating a plurality of network agent processes such that the dedicated memory is shared among each of the processes participating in the data transfer pipeline.