Systems and methods for InfiniBand fabric optimizations to minimize SA access and startup failover times. A system can comprise one or more microprocessors, a first subnet, the first subnet comprising a plurality of switches, a plurality of host channel adapters, a plurality of hosts, and a subnet manager, the subnet manager running on one of the one or more switches and the plurality of host channel adapters. The subnet manager can be configured to determine that the plurality of hosts and the plurality of switches support a same set of capabilities. On such determination, the subnet manager can configure an SMA flag, the flag indicating that a condition can be set for each of the host channel adapter ports.

Using an alternative communication protocol between a first system and a second system that are otherwise configured to communicate using a FICON protocol includes the first system determining if the alternative communication protocol is handled by the second system, the first system providing encapsulated data by encapsulating FICON data if the alternative communication protocol is handled at the second system, and the first system transmitting the encapsulated data directly to the second system using the alternative communication protocol if the alternative communication protocol is handled at the second system. The alternative communication protocol may be TCP/IP. At least one of the systems is a host computing system, an array storage system, and/or a tape emulation system. At least one of the systems may be a simulation of a host computing system, an array storage system, and/or a tape emulation system.

According to various aspects of the present disclosure, an apparatus is provided. In an aspect, the apparatus includes an optical transceiver having a first port, a second port and an optical switch coupled to the first port and the second port. The optical switch is switchable between a unidirectional port operation mode and a bidirectional port operation mode. When the optical switch is in the unidirectional port operation mode, the first port is configured to send a first optical signal, and the second port configured to receive a second optical signal. When the optical switch is in the bidirectional port operation mode, the first port configured to send the first optical signal and receive the second optical signal, and the second port configured to receive a third optical signal and not send the first signal. Furthermore, a second bidirectional port operation mode is supported with the second port configured to send the first optical signal and receive the second optical signal, and the first port configured to receive a third optical signal and not send the first signal.

Symmetric storage using a cloud-based storage system, including: receiving, at a cloud-based storage system among storage systems synchronously replicating a dataset, an I/O operation directed to the dataset; determining, in dependence upon the I/O operation, a metadata update describing a mapping of segments of content to an address within a storage object, wherein the storage object includes the dataset; and synchronizing metadata on another storage system of the storage systems by sending the metadata update from the cloud-based storage system to the other storage system to update a metadata representation on the second storage system in accordance with the metadata update.

This disclosure describes systems, devices, methods and computer readable media for enhanced network communication for use in higher performance applications including storage, high performance computing (HPC) and Ethernet-based fabric interconnects. In some embodiments, a network controller may include a transmitter circuit configured to transmit packets on a plurality of virtual lanes (VLs), the VLs associated with a defined VL priority and an allocated share of network bandwidth. The network controller may also include a bandwidth monitor module configured to measure bandwidth consumed by the packets and an arbiter module configured to adjust the VL priority based on a comparison of the measured bandwidth to the allocated share of network bandwidth. The transmitter circuit may be further configured to transmit the packets based on the adjusted VL priority.

Technologies for switching network traffic include a network switch. The network switch includes one or more processors and communication circuitry coupled to the one or more processors. The communication circuitry is capable of switching network traffic of multiple link layer protocols. Additionally, the network switch includes one or more memory devices storing instructions that, when executed, cause the network switch to receive, with the communication circuitry through an optical connection, network traffic to be forwarded, and determine a link layer protocol of the received network traffic. The instructions additionally cause the network switch to forward the network traffic as a function of the determined link layer protocol. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Examples described herein relate to a network interface that includes an initiator device to determine a storage node associated with an access command based on an association between an address in the command and a storage node. The network interface can include a redirector to update the association based on messages from one or more remote storage nodes. The association can be based on a look-up table associating a namespace identifier with prefix string and object size. In some examples, the access command is compatible with NVMe over Fabrics. The initiator device can determine a remote direct memory access (RDMA) queue-pair (QP) lookup for use to perform the access command.

Examples described herein relate to a network interface that includes an initiator device to determine a storage node associated with an access command based on an association between an address in the command and a storage node. The network interface can include a redirector to update the association based on messages from one or more remote storage nodes. The association can be based on a look-up table associating a namespace identifier with prefix string and object size. In some examples, the access command is compatible with NVMe over Fabrics. The initiator device can determine a remote direct memory access (RDMA) queue-pair (QP) lookup for use to perform the access command.

In some examples, a system includes a Fibre Channel (FC) interface to communicate over an FC network, and a network stack including a network layer and a transport layer. Machine-readable instructions are executable to produce a command packet including a payload including data for transmission to another system, the payload further including headers for the network layer and the transport layer, where the command packet is according to a storage interface protocol. The FC interface is to communicate the command packet over the FC network.

Secure access to data on a storage system via direct connection to an internal fabric of the storage system may be provided. A storage system interface (SSI) may validate each I/O communication originating on the host system before allowing a corresponding I/O communication to be transmitted on the internal fabric. The validation may include applying predefined rules and/or ensuring that the I/O communication conforms to one or more technologies, e.g., NVMe. The SSI may be configured to encrypt I/O communications originating on a host system and to decrypt I/O communications received from the storage system, for example, in embodiments in which data is encrypted in flight from the host system to physical storage devices, and data may be encrypted at rest in memory of the storage system and/or on physical storage devices.