System and method for supporting node role attributes in a high performance computing environment. In accordance with an embodiment, a node role attribute can comprise a vendor defined subnet management attribute. When a subnet manager attempts to discover a high performance computing environment, such as an InfiniBand subnet, or a switch topology, identifying a topology is quite complex when subnet manager can only observe connectivity, without context behind the connectivity (the roles of the different nodes in the connectivity). However, when a subnet has a node role attribute enabled, the subnet manager can map the interconnect more effectively as it can discover not only the connectivity during the initial sweep, but it can also discover the role of each node discovered, thus leading to a more efficient interconnect discovery.

System and method for supporting scalable representation of switch port status in a high performance computing environment. In accordance with an embodiment, a scalable representation of switch port status can be provided. By adding a scalable representation of switch port status at each switch (both physical and virtual)—instead of getting all switch port changes individually, the scalable representation of switch port status can combine a number of ports that can scale by just using a few bits of information for each port's status.

One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. During operation, the switch parses a first schema of the switch. The first schema indicates initialization information for one or more services of the switch expressed based on one or more tags. The switch then identifies a tag of the one or more tags in the first schema based on the parsing and identifies information corresponding to the tag from a profile of the switch. Subsequently, the switch generates a second schema from the first schema based on the identified information.

A data processing apparatus includes N apparatus input ends, an input switch, K buffer areas, a first output switch, a second output switch, and M apparatus output ends. N input ends of the input switch are coupled to the N apparatus input ends, and K output ends of the input switch correspond to the K buffer areas. K.sub.1 input ends of the first output switch correspond to K.sub.1 buffer areas in the K buffer areas, and M output ends of the first output switch are coupled to the M apparatus output ends. K.sub.2 input ends of the second output switch correspond to K.sub.2 buffer areas in the K buffer areas except the K.sub.1 buffer areas, and M output ends of the second output switch are coupled to the M apparatus output ends.

System and method for supporting node role attributes in a high performance computing environment. In accordance with an embodiment, a node role attribute can comprise a vendor defined subnet management attribute. When a subnet manager attempts to discover a high performance computing environment, such as an InfiniBand subnet, or a switch topology, identifying a topology is quite complex when subnet manager can only observe connectivity, without context behind the connectivity (the roles of the different nodes in the connectivity). However, when a subnet has a node role attribute enabled, the subnet manager can map the interconnect more effectively as it can discover not only the connectivity during the initial sweep, but it can also discover the role of each node discovered, thus leading to a more efficient interconnect discovery.

System and method for providing an InfiniBand network device having a vendor-specific attribute that contains a signature of the vendor. An exemplary embodiment can provide an InfiniBand compatible network device from a vendor. The vendor can further define a subnet management attribute, where the subnet management attribute has an attribute identifier in the range of attribute identifiers reserved in the InfiniBand specification. The vendor can define a signature bit string that is a fixed number of bits in length and a number of offset bits, where the number of offset bits indicates the start of the signature bit string within the attribute. The subnet management attribute can be configured with the signature bit string starting where the offset bits indicate, and the subnet management attribute can be included as an attribute of the InfiniBand compatible network device.

System and method for supporting scalable representation of link stability and availability in a high performance computing environment. A method can provide at attribute at each node in a subnet, wherein the attribute provides a single location at each node for a subnet manager to query the stability and availability of each link connected to the queried node. The attribute can be populated and maintained by a subnet management agent residing at the node.

A method and a first device (110) of a switched network (100), for managing data frames received, at a first port, from a second device (120) are disclosed. The first device (110) handles the first port and a second port for transfer of data frames between the first and second devices (110, 120). The first device (110) is addressable by a Media Access Control address, MAC address, associated with the first port. The first device (110) receives (201), from the second device (120), at least one data frame at the second port. The first device (110) sends (202), on the first port, a message including the MAC address associated with the first port.

System and method for representing performance management agent (PMA) attributes as subnet management agent (SMA) attributes in a high performance computing environment. In general legacy systems, performance metrics, as collected by a performance management agent, can only be collected via the use of general data packets traversing a subnet. In accordance with an embodiment, by configuring a SMA attribute to comprise the same performance metrics as collected by a PMA, a subnet manager, or another management component, can access the performance metrics in-band via the use of a subnet management packet.

Method and computing device performing a fabric deployment in a data center. The computing device stores a configuration file comprising first and second IPv6 base prefixes, and a fabric identifier. The computing device generates a host identifier, a fabric-wide IPv6 prefix by combining the first IPv6 base prefix and the fabric identifier, and a fabric-wide IPv6 address by combining the fabric-wide IPv6 prefix and the host identifier. The computing device determines a local node identifier and a local link identifier for a communication interface of the computing device. The computing device performs a (secure) neighbor discovery procedure for determining a remote node identifier and a remote link identifier for a communication interface of a remote computing device. The computing device generates a link IPv6 address based on the second IPv6 base prefix and at least some of: the local node and link identifiers, and the remote node and link identifiers.