Segment-controlled process for controlling castouts from a communication cache in a port in any of multiple nodes in a communications network

• Main Author: GREGG THOMAS ANTHONY
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 27.05.2003
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; ELECTRICITY; PHYSICS; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION

Defines and handles segments in messages to place pauses and interruptions within the communication of a message between transmitted segments of the message. A port cache of the destination node of each transmitted message obtains a message control block (MCB) which is used to control the reception of inbound segments within each message sent or received by the node. Each MCB stays in the cache only while its message is being communicated to the port and may be castout between segments in its message when there is no empty cache entry to receive a MCB for a current message being communicated but not having its MCB in the cache. Different types of dynamic priorities are written in status fields in each non-empty cache entry to enable a current cache entry to be castout when it is most likely to have the longest wait for being needed next in the cache for a segment communication to its message, which reduces cache castout thrashing to increase the average reception speed for communicating messages in the network. If a common link switch is used in a network to connect links to all nodes, the segment structures in each message is musts be preserved when packets of each message are passed through the switch to a destination node which uses the castout controlled communication cache taught herein.