Methods and apparatus for efficient scaling of fabric architectures such as those based on PCIe technology, including up to very large fabrics and numbers of hosts/devices for use in ultra-high performance applications such as for example data centers and computing clusters. In one aspect, methods and apparatus for using Non-Transparent Bridge (NTB) technology to export Message Signaled Interrupts (MSIs) to external hosts are described. In a further aspect, an IO Virtual Address (IOVA) space is created is used as a method of sharing an address space between hosts, including across the foregoing NTB(s). Additionally, a Fabric Manager (FM) entity is disclosed and utilized for programming e.g., PCIe switch hardware to effect a desired host/fabric configuration.

A data processing system comprising: a host computer system supporting a software entity and a receive queue for the software entity; a network interface device having a controller unit configured to provide a data port for receiving data packets from a network and a data bus interface for connection to a host computer system, the network interface device being connected to the host computer system by means of the data bus interface; and an accelerator module arranged between the controller unit and a network and having a first medium access controller for connection to the network and a second medium access controller coupled to the data port of the controller unit, the accelerator module being configured to: on behalf of the software entity, process incoming data packets received from the network in one or more streams associated with a first set of one or more network endpoints; encapsulate data resulting from said processing in network data packets directed to the software entity; and deliver the network data packets to the data port of the controller unit so as to cause the network data packets to be written to the receive queue of the software entity.

Example implementations relate to virtual host bus adapter logins. A hypervisor may comprise a processing resource and a memory resource storing non-transitory machine-readable instructions to cause the processing resource to query a computing device to determine port identity information of a plurality of virtual host bus adapters (VHBAs) associated with a physical host bus adapter (HBA) of the computing device and uplink mappings for the plurality of VHBAs, determine a bandwidth allocation of each of the plurality of VHBAs, rank each of the plurality of VHBAs, and cause each of the plurality of VHBAs to login via the determined uplink mappings based on the rank of each of the plurality of VHBAs.

Techniques for emulating a configuration space by a peripheral device may include receiving a configuration access request, determining that the configuration access request is for a configuration space other than a native configuration space of the peripheral device, and retrieving an emulated configuration from an emulated configuration space. The configuration access request can then be serviced by using the emulated configuration.

Techniques for emulating a configuration space may include emulating a set of configuration registers for a set of functions corresponding to a type of peripheral device. The set of functions can include a physical function and a virtual function associated with the physical function. A configuration access request can be processed by retrieving an emulated configuration register from the emulated configuration space, and logging incoming configuration access requests in a configuration transaction log to track configuration accesses.

A data processing system comprising: a host computer system supporting a software entity and a receive queue for the software entity; a network interface device having a controller unit configured to provide a data port for receiving data packets from a network and a data bus interface for connection to a host computer system, the network interface device being connected to the host computer system by means of the data bus interface; and an accelerator module arranged between the controller unit and a network and having a first medium access controller for connection to the network and a second medium access controller coupled to the data port of the controller unit, the accelerator module being configured to: on behalf of the software entity, process incoming data packets received from the network in one or more streams associated with a first set of one or more network endpoints; encapsulate data resulting from said processing in network data packets directed to the software entity; and deliver the network data packets to the data port of the controller unit so as to cause the network data packets to be written to the receive queue of the software entity.

In cases where local devices (6, 6a) support a master transfer function, a portion of the memory space, of each of local devices (6, 6a), to be controlled from system host (2) is mapped onto a memory space on system host (2) side and a plurality of local devices (6, 6a) are reconfigured as one virtual local device. This provides information processing apparatus (4) which, in cases of connection with the plurality of local devices (6, 6a), resolves resource shortage on system host (2) side by appropriately mapping necessary registers of local devices (6, 6a) onto a memory space for system host (2).

A data processing system comprising: a processing subsystem supporting a plurality of consumers, each consumer being arranged to process messages received into a corresponding receive queue; a network interface device supporting a virtual interface for each of the receive queues; and a hardware accelerator coupled to the processing subsystem by the network interface device and configured to parse one or more streams of data packets received from a network so as to, for each consumer: identify in the data packets messages having one or more of a set of characteristics associated with the consumer; and frame the identified messages in a new stream of data packets addressed to a network endpoint associated with the virtual interface of the consumer so as to cause said new stream of data packets to be delivered into the receive queue of the consumer.

Methods, apparatus, and systems for transferring data between a first and second module are provided. In one aspect, a method includes receiving, by a virtual controller register, outbound data; arbitrating, at a virtual arbitrate, the outbound data; transmitting, from the virtual controller register to the master low speed bus (LSB) frame/de-frame, the outbound data; adding, at the master LSB frame/de-frame, identification data to the outbound data to create an outbound data frame; transmitting, from the master LSB frame/de-frame to a slave LSB frame/de-frame, the outbound data frame; parsing, at the slave LSB frame/de-frame, the outbound data frame into parsed outbound data; arbitrating the parsed outbound data; transmitting, from the slave LSB frame/de-frame to the target controller register, the parsed outbound data; and receiving, at a target controller port from the target controller register, the parsed outbound data for transmitting to the slave device.

Systems, methods, and apparatus are described for communicating virtual GPIO (VGI) information between multiple source devices and multiple consuming devices. A method for facilitating communication of VGI state over a serial bus includes determining that an in-band interrupt has been asserted on the serial bus while the serial bus is idle, participating in an exchange of VGI state when a first bit of a device address transmitted during bus arbitration associated with the in-band interrupt has a first value, receiving a plurality of bits of VGI state during the exchange of VGI state, including bits transmitted by multiple devices coupled to the serial bus, and mapping at least one bit in the plurality of bits of VGI state to a physical GPIO pin. Transmission of at least a second bit of the device address is suppressed when the first bit of a device address has the first value.