Patent ID: 10001930

Abstract:
A method for implementing a packet I/O engine on a programmable computing platform is provided, where the engine performs I/O functions for plural threads generated by a plurality of user applications. In the method, the platform is configured such that only one thread is permitted to initialize and configure the resources. Furthermore, I/O-device queues each for buffering packets either transmitted to or received from an individual external I/O device are set up. For a plurality of unsafe I/O-device queues determined, among the I/O-device queues, to be multi-thread unsafe, a plurality of multi-producer, multi-consumer software queues for buffering packets delivered between the plurality of the unsafe I/O-device queues and the plurality of user applications is set up. In particular, the plurality of multi-producer, multi-consumer software queues is configured such that the unsafe I/O-device queues are collectively synchronized to maintain data consistency in packet delivery in the presence of multiple threads.