JPH05303544A - Data transfer controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To shorten the time required for transfer processing as to the controller for data transfer between application processes in a computer system applied with virtual storage. CONSTITUTION:The data transfer controller for the computer system which is equipped with plural processing means 101 and a common memory 102 accessed by those information means 101 and applied with the virtual storage system is equipped with a fitting means 112 which secures part of the common memory 102 as a common buffer area 111 and fits the common buffer area 111 to the processing means 101 as storage areas starting at the same logical address, an assigning means 113 which assigns the partial storage area of the common buffer area 111 as a communication buffer at a communication buffer acquisition request from each processing means 101, and a transmitting means 114 which transmits the logical address of the corresponding buffer to a processing means 101 at a transfer destination according to a data transfer indication from the processing means 101.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data transfer control device for controlling data transfer between application processes in a computer system to which virtual memory is applied.

In recent years, computer operating systems have been standardized in order to promote the sharing of software assets among users. UNIX (UNIX is an operating system developed by AT & T Bell Laboratories in the United States as an operating system. System)
There is an increasing demand for computer systems equipped with.

Many of the recent operating systems represented by UNIX apply virtual memory,
UNIX is also widely used in workstations and the like. Therefore, not only a large-scale computer but also a user of a workstation can execute a large-scale program using the virtual memory system.

In a computer system to which such virtual recording is applied, the memory space is seemingly infinite, so that the user creates an unlimited number of application processes and executes the programs. Therefore, there is a need for a technique for efficiently transferring data between these application processes.

[0005]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, data transfer between application processes is performed by interprocess communication provided by an operating system.

FIG. 3 shows an explanatory diagram of a conventional data transfer process. In FIG. 3, application processes (hereinafter, simply referred to as processes) 310 and 320 secure communication buffers 312 and 322 in addition to work buffers 311 and 321 respectively. For example, when transferring data from the process 310 to the process 320,
The process 310 includes the buffer 311 to the communication buffer 3
A control block showing necessary data and data contents is copied to the operating system (OS) 3
Request communication processing to 30.

In response to this, the operating system 330 copies the contents of the above-mentioned communication buffer 312 into the buffer 331 secured by itself, and further, the contents of this buffer 331 are copied into the communication buffer 3 of the process 320.
Copy to 22.

At this time, the operating system 330 also notifies the process 320 that the data from the process 310 has been written to the communication buffer 322. In response, the process 320 causes the communication buffer 3
By copying the contents of 22 into the buffer 321,
The data transfer process from the process 310 to the process 320 is completed.

[0009]

By the way, a process that appears to the user as one is actually modularized according to the function, and each module is often executed as a process. With such a configuration, since each process can operate in parallel, the processing as a whole can be efficiently advanced, but if the frequency of data transfer processing between processes becomes high, it will be due to the overhead of the operating system. Therefore, the overall processing speed will decrease.

In particular, since communication processing performed with processes on other processing devices via a communication network is realized by a hierarchical structure composed of processes having a large number of functions, the processes between the processes of each hierarchy are The processing speed decreases significantly due to communication. Therefore, a module that provides the communication function of each layer below the transport layer is installed in the system,
A mechanism (stream) for efficiently performing data transfer processing between these layers has been realized.

On the other hand, in the application layer, which is the highest layer, it is necessary to prioritize the degree of freedom in developing an application program rather than the processing performance, and therefore no measures have been taken to reduce the overhead.

However, in the application layer as well, a plurality of processes may form a hierarchy,
The processing performance may be significantly deteriorated due to the overhead of performing inter-process communication in these processes.

An object of the present invention is to provide a data transfer control device that shortens the time required for data transfer processing between application processes.

[0014]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the principle of the present invention. The present invention relates to a plurality of processing means 101 and a shared memory 1 accessible from these processing means 101.
And a shared memory 10 in a data transfer control device of a computer system to which a virtual memory system is applied.
2, a part of the storage area is secured as the common buffer area 111, the common buffer area 111 is attached to each of the plurality of processing means 101 as a storage area starting from the same logical address, and the plurality of processing means 1
01 in accordance with a communication buffer acquisition request from each of the common buffer area 111, the allocation means 113 for allocating at least a part of the storage area of the common buffer area 111 as a communication buffer, and a data transfer instruction from each of the plurality of processing means 101. And a transmission means 114 for transmitting the logical address indicating the communication buffer to the processing means 101 which is the transfer destination.

[0015]

According to the present invention, the mounting means 112 attaches the common buffer area 111 provided in the shared memory 102 to a plurality of processing means 101 at the same logical address, so that each processing means 101 has a unified logic. By using the address, the contents of the common buffer area 111 described above can be referred to.

Therefore, when data is transferred between the plurality of processing means 101, the transmission means 114 transfers the logical address of the communication buffer assigned to the processing means 101 on the transmission side by the assigning means 113 to the processing means of the transfer destination. 1
01 to the transfer destination processing means 101.
Can refer to the contents of the corresponding communication buffer.

In this case, since it is not necessary to transmit the data itself to be transferred, the time required for the data transfer processing can be shortened by applying it to the data transfer processing between application processes.

[0018]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 shows an embodiment configuration of a computer system to which the data transfer control device of the present invention is applied.

In FIG. 2, a memory management unit 211 and a communication control unit 212 are shown as operating system (O).
S) part of 210. The memory management unit 211 holds a correspondence relationship between a logical address in each process activated on this computer system and a physical address in the memory 220, and based on this correspondence relationship,
It controls access from each process. Further, the communication control unit 212 sets a communication path between the processes and controls inter-process communication via this communication path.

A part of the above-mentioned memory 220 is a shared memory 221 which can be commonly used by the operating system and the application process. Further, in FIG. 2, the application process 230
Each of a and 230b has a configuration in which an access control unit 232 is linked to the communication processing unit 231 of the conventional application process. Below, application process 23
0a and 230b are collectively referred to as application process 230.

The communication processing unit 231 described above is the processing means 1
It corresponds to 01. In addition, the access control unit 23
2 is configured to mediate transfer of information between the shared memory 221 and a buffer management process 240 described later in response to an instruction from the communication processing unit 231.

In FIG. 2, the buffer management process 24
The buffer reservation processing unit 241 for 0 reserves a part of the storage area of the shared memory 221 as the common buffer area 111. In addition, the reception / analysis unit 242
The instruction input from the application process 230 is analyzed and the instruction is sent to each of the acquisition control unit 243, the release control unit 244, and the write control unit 245. By these units, the common buffer area described above is used. It is configured to manage allocation and release of 111.

Here, the above-mentioned buffer reservation processing section 24
When securing the common buffer area 111, 1 may request the memory management unit 211 to attach by designating the logical address AL as the start address. In response to this, the memory management unit 211 sets the correspondence between the logical address AL and the corresponding physical address of the shared memory 221.

As the logical address AL, a value sufficiently larger than the upper limit considered as the size of the application program may be set. Further, the top physical address of the storage area secured as the common buffer area 111 may be determined in advance inside the computer system.

The buffer reservation processing section 241 divides the common buffer area 111 reserved as described above into a plurality of buffers each having an appropriate capacity in advance,
An identification number may be associated with each buffer. Also,
Buffer management table 2 showing allocation status of each buffer
46, and referring to the buffer management table 246, the acquisition control unit 243 and the release control unit 24 described above are provided.
4, the write controller 245 may be operated.

The buffer management process 240
Needs to be started prior to other application processes 230, so it can be started as an extension of the startup process of the computer system and can be set as a so-called daemon process.

Further, in FIG. 2, the access control unit 23
2, the attachment processing unit 233 performs the attachment processing of the common buffer area 111 according to the activation of the application process 230, and the acquisition / release processing unit 234 causes the buffer management process to perform the communication with other processes. A communication buffer is acquired in the common buffer area 111 via 240, and the transfer processing is performed by the transfer processing unit 245 and the write processing unit 246.

Here, the exchange of information between the access control section 232 and the buffer management process 240 and other application process 230 is performed by process communication via the communication path set by the communication control section 212. .. However, in FIG. 2, the flow of information exchanged between each unit forming the access control unit 232 and the buffer management process 240 and the other application process 230 is shown for the sake of simplicity. Also, in FIG. 2, the application process 230
Although only the internal configuration of a is shown, the configuration of the application process 230b is similar.

Further, the buffer management process 240 includes a communication path control unit 247 and a communication path table 248. The communication path control unit 247 causes the communication control unit 212,
In response to the notifications from the acquisition control unit 243 and the release control unit 244, the correspondence relation between the communication path set with each application process 230 and each buffer in the common buffer area 111 is recognized, and the communication path table 248. It is configured to hold. Further, when the communication control unit 212 notifies that the communication path to the application process 230 has been disconnected, the communication path control unit 247.
Determines that the corresponding application 230 has terminated abnormally, and instructs the release control unit 244 to release the corresponding region of the common buffer region 111.

As described above, the communication path control unit 247 monitors the communication path, so that the application process 230 can be indirectly monitored, and it is possible to flexibly deal with abnormal termination of the application process 230. Is.

The operation of the data transfer control device of the present invention will be described below. First, following the computer system startup processing, the buffer management process 240 is activated. In response to this, the buffer reservation processing unit 241 operates to reserve a part of the shared memory 221 as the common buffer area 111 via the memory management unit 211, and divides the common buffer area 111 into, for example, every 2 power bytes. To create a buffer with several different capacities.

At this time, the buffer reservation processing section 241
A control header may be provided corresponding to each buffer obtained by dividing the common buffer area 111 so as to hold a relation such as a start address of a data part and a chain between the buffers.

As described above, the common buffer area 111 is divided into buffers having various capacities in advance, and a buffer having an appropriate capacity can be promptly allocated in response to a request from the application process 230. Further, by configuring the relationship between the buffers by the control header, it is possible to deal with a chain of buffers.

Thereafter, the application process 230
When is activated, the attachment processing unit 233 provided in each access control unit 232 starts its operation. The attachment processing unit 233 first requests the communication control unit 212 to set a communication path with the buffer management process 240, and the attachment address of the common buffer area 111 is sent to the buffer management process 240 via the set communication path. To request.

In response, the buffer management process 24
The reception / analysis unit 242 of 0 is the buffer reservation processing unit 241.
On the other hand, when the common buffer area 111 is secured, the memory management unit 211 may be requested to notify the specified logical address AL, and the obtained logical address AL may be notified to the attachment processing unit 233.

Further, the attachment processing unit 233 requests the memory management unit 211 to attach the common buffer area 111 by designating the notified logical address AL, and in response thereto, the memory management unit 211 The common buffer area 111 is stored in the storage area starting from the logical address AL of the logical address space of the corresponding application process 230.
The storage area of the shared memory 221 corresponding to is associated with.

In this way, by performing the attachment processing by the attachment processing unit 233 of each application process 230, each application process 230
It is possible to unify the logical addresses of the common buffer area 111 among them. That is, the attachment processing unit 233, the reception / analysis unit 242, the buffer reservation processing unit 241, and the memory management unit 211 are configured to realize the function of the attachment unit 112.

At this time, the communication control unit 212 notifies the communication path control unit 247 of the buffer management process 240 of the communication path identification number set with each application process 230.

Thereafter, for example, prior to data transfer processing from the application process 230a to the application process 230b, the application process 2
The communication processing unit 231 of 30a requests the communication control unit 212 to set a communication path with the application process 230b, as in the conventional case. In response to this, the operating system 210 sets a communication path between the application processes 230a and 230b as in the conventional case.

At this time, the access control unit 232 is acquired /
The release processing unit 234 acquires a communication buffer having a capacity corresponding to a control block via the operating system 210 according to the buffer acquisition instruction from the communication processing unit 231, and is set between the release processing unit 234 and the buffer management process 240. The communication buffer acquisition request is transmitted via the communication path. Here, the acquisition / release processing unit 234 uses the communication buffer acquisition request to set the communication buffer having a capacity corresponding to the amount of data to be transferred to the common buffer area 11.
You only have to request the acquisition from 1.

In response to this request, the reception / analysis unit 242 of the buffer management process 240 activates the acquisition control unit 243, and the acquisition control unit 243 performs the acquisition process of the buffer corresponding to the designated capacity, The identification information (for example, control header) corresponding to the acquired buffer is accepted / received.
The acquisition / release processing unit 234 is notified via the analysis unit 242.

In this way, according to the request from the acquisition / release processing section 234 of each application process 230,
The accepting / analyzing unit 242 and the acquisition control unit 243 of the buffer management process 240 operate so that the allocation unit 1
13 functions are realized, and each application process 2
A buffer included in the common buffer area 111 can be assigned to 30.

At this time, the acquisition control unit 243 notifies the communication path control unit 247 of the identification number corresponding to the acquired buffer, and accordingly, the communication path control unit 247 applies the identification number of this buffer. It may be stored in the communication path table 248 corresponding to the identification number of the communication path.

When acquisition of a plurality of chained buffers is instructed by the communication processing unit 231, the acquisition / release processing unit 234 requests the communication buffer acquisition request by designating the capacity of each buffer and the effect of chaining. Just send it out. In this case, the acquisition control unit 243 acquires a plurality of buffers from the common buffer area 111, stores a pointer indicating the control header of the next buffer in the control header corresponding to the first buffer, and acquires this control header. The acquisition / release processing unit 234 may be notified as the identification information of the created buffer. Also, the identification numbers of these buffers are notified to the communication path control unit 247 and stored in the communication path table 248 in correspondence with the identification numbers of the corresponding communication paths.

In this way, a chain of communication buffers can be dealt with in the same manner as when a communication buffer is acquired via the memory management unit 211. Further, the buffer management table 246 may be configured to store, for example, the identification number of the communication path corresponding to the application process 230 that acquired the buffer, corresponding to the identification information of each buffer. In this case, each time the acquisition control unit 243 described above acquires a buffer in response to an instruction from the acquisition / release processing unit 233, the identification number of the communication path corresponding to the application process corresponds to the buffer management table 246. It may be stored corresponding to the identification information of the buffer.

Here, as described above, the application processes 230a and 230b have the same logical address.
Since the common buffer area 111 is attached by designating AL, the content of each buffer in the common buffer area 111 can be referred to by designating the same logical address.

Therefore, the application process 230 on the transmission side stores the data to be transmitted in the buffer in the common buffer area 111 acquired as described above, and the address of this buffer is stored in the application process 230 on the reception side. When notified, the application process 230 on the receiving side can refer to the data stored in the corresponding buffer. That is, by transmitting the identification information corresponding to the buffer address acquired in the common buffer area 111, the data transfer process between the application processes 230a and 230b can be realized.

The data transfer process will be specifically described below. When transferring data from the application process 230a to the application process 230b,
First, the communication processing unit 231 of the application process 230a gives an instruction to copy data from its own work area to the communication buffer.

In response to this instruction, the writing processor 236
First, the application process 230a requests the buffer management process 240 to write to the communication buffer acquired in the common buffer area 111.

In response, the buffer management process 24
The 0 reception / analysis unit 242 activates the writing control unit 245. The writing control unit 245 determines whether or not the corresponding buffer is being written, and if the writing is not being performed, the acceptance / analysis unit 2 accepts that writing to the corresponding buffer is permitted.
The writing processing unit 236 is notified via 42. For example, a flag indicating whether or not writing is being performed is provided in the buffer management table 246, and the writing control unit 245
If it is indicated that the writing is not being performed by referring to this flag in response to the writing request, it is sufficient to set this flag to the writing and then notify that the writing is permitted. ..

When the writing to the communication buffer is permitted as described above, the writing processing unit 236 designates the corresponding buffer of the common buffer area 111 from the communication processing unit 231 via the memory management unit 211. The written data. In addition, after the writing process is completed, the writing processing unit 2
36 notifies the buffer management process 240 that the writing process has been completed, and in response to this notification, the writing control unit 245.
However, the flag of the buffer management table 246 described above may be reset to indicate that writing is not in progress.

On the other hand, when referring to the buffer management table 246 indicates that the corresponding buffer in the common buffer area 111 is being written, the write control unit 245.
Holds the write request in the queue, waits for the end notification from the application process 230 which has been permitted the write request, and then permits the write request again.

As described above, each application process 230 receives the write request permission from the buffer management process 240 and performs the writing process in the shared memory 221, so that the plurality of application processes 230 can be processed.
Even when the same buffer is assigned to the buffers, exclusive control of the write processing from these application processes 230 to the corresponding buffers can be performed.

As described above, after the data writing process is completed, the transfer processing unit 235 of the application process 230a is activated by the application process 230b.
The identification information indicating the buffer acquired by itself from the buffer management process 240 may be transmitted as a control block indicating the content of the data via the communication path set between and. At this time, the transfer processing unit 235 may transmit, for example, a control header corresponding to this buffer as the identification information of the buffer. In this case, as a communication buffer for transmitting information via the above-mentioned communication path,
It suffices to secure a capacity corresponding to this control block.

That is, the function of the transmission means 114 is fulfilled by the transfer processing section 235 and the communication control section 212.
It is possible to indicate to the receiving application process 230b a buffer in which the data to be transferred is stored.

As a result, the application process 230b on the receiving side can recognize the buffer in which the data that the application process 230a on the sending side tries to send is stored.

For example, the transfer processing unit 235 of the application process 230b on the receiving side notifies the write processing unit 236 of the identification information of the buffer received via the communication path, and the write processing unit 236 responds to this by the write processing unit 236. The corresponding data may be read from the shared memory 221 via the memory management unit 211 and transferred to the work buffer of the communication processing unit 231.

In this case, the application process 2
The information transmitted / received in the inter-process communication between 30a and 230b is only the identification information of the communication buffer, the data itself stored in the communication buffer is not transmitted / received, and the application process 230 on the receiving side is in the common buffer area 111. Is received by directly referencing the buffer.

Therefore, as compared with the conventional method, the time required for the entire data transfer process between application processes can be shortened by the amount of data transmission time by interprocess communication. The inventor has conducted an experiment to measure the data transfer time between application processes using a computer system to which the data transfer control device of the present invention is applied, and the time required for the data transfer processing is significantly larger than that of the conventional method. The result has been shortened to.

Therefore, by applying the data transfer control device of the present invention, the processing efficiency of the application process in the computer system can be improved, and the serviceability to the user can be improved.
In particular, when the application processes are layered, the effect of reducing the time required for the data transfer processing is remarkable.

Further, as described above, the data transfer control device of the present invention comprises the buffer management process 240 and the access control unit 232 linked to the communication processing unit 231 of each application process 230, and the operating system. There is no need to change anything on the side.

Therefore, without countering the flow of standardization in recent years, by providing the above-mentioned buffer management process 240 and access control section 232, it is possible to perform various operations on computer systems having various standardized operating systems. The data transfer control device of the present invention can be realized. Moreover, the change of the application program is very slight, and it is possible to effectively use the existing software resources.

By the way, as described in the above embodiment, the buffer management process 2 is performed by dividing the entire common buffer area 111 in advance to create a buffer.
The speed of the buffer allocation process by 40 is increased. On the other hand, it is not possible to deal flexibly after all buffers having an appropriate capacity have been allocated, or when a buffer having a capacity much larger than the expected capacity is requested.

In order to flexibly deal with such a case,
An area that can be dynamically managed may be provided in the common buffer area 111. For example, when reserving the common buffer area 111, the buffer reserving processing unit 241 of the buffer management process 240 leaves a part of the common buffer area 111 as a dynamic management area and leaves this part as a series of storage areas without partitioning. You can leave it. Further, the acquisition control unit 243 may be configured to cut out a necessary buffer from this dynamic management area when there is no free buffer corresponding to the buffer capacity indicated by the buffer acquisition request.

In this way, by providing the common buffer area 111 with the dynamic management area together with the static management area previously divided into predetermined capacities, buffer management considering not only processing performance but also expandability is realized. can do.

If a priority is set in the buffer acquisition request and there is no free buffer having an appropriate capacity, the acquisition control unit 243 acquires a buffer from the dynamic management area according to the priority. It may be configured to determine whether to cut out.

For example, three priority levels are set in the buffer acquisition request, the buffer is cut out from the dynamic management area when the buffer acquisition request has the highest priority, and the buffer acquisition with the next highest priority is acquired. In case of request,
The acquisition control unit 243 holds this buffer acquisition request in a queue, and if the buffer acquisition request has the lowest priority, simply notifies that the buffer cannot be acquired.

As a result, the application process 2
The buffer can be efficiently allocated according to the need on the side of 30. Furthermore, a trace information holding unit is provided in the acquisition control unit 243, and when the requested buffer cannot be acquired, the information regarding the capacity designated at that time is held as trace information, and the buffer is deleted from the dynamic management area. When cutting out, refer to this trace information,
You may separate the buffers with the capacity that is considered to be highly necessary.

Further, a write-prohibited address is set in the write controller 245, and when the application process 230 makes a write request to the corresponding address, the operating system 210 is notified and the write request is sent. It is also possible to protect confidential information by requesting the exclusion of the application process that performed the above.

[0070]

As described above, according to the present invention, the transmitting side processing means transmits the address of the communication buffer acquired from the common buffer area to the receiving side processing means.
Since the processing means on the receiving side can refer to the contents of the corresponding communication buffer based on this address, it is possible to speed up the data transfer processing between application processes. As a result, the processing performance of the application process can be improved and the serviceability to the user can be improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a principle block diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a computer system to which the data transfer control device of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional data transfer process.

[Explanation of symbols]

 101 Processing Means 102 Shared Memory 111 Common Buffer Area 112 Attachment Means 113 Allocation Means 114 Transmission Means 210,330 Operating System (OS) 211 Memory Management Unit 212 Communication Control Unit 220 Memory 221 Shared Memory 230,310,320 Application Process 231 Communication Processing Part 232 Access control part 233 Attachment processing part 234 Acquisition / release processing part 235 Transfer processing part 236 Write processing part 240 Buffer management process 241 Buffer reservation processing part 242 Reception / analysis part 243 Acquisition control part 244 Release control part 245 Write control 246 buffer management table 247 communication path control unit 248 communication path table 311, 321, 331 buffer 312, 322 communication buffer

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of processing means (101) and a shared memory (10) accessible from these processing means (101).
2) and a data transfer control device of a computer system to which a virtual memory system is applied, a partial storage area of the shared memory (102) is secured as a common buffer area (111), and the plurality of processing means ( 101) The common buffer area (111) for each
Is attached as a storage area starting from the same logical address, and the common buffer area (11) according to a communication buffer acquisition request from each of the plurality of processing means (101).
In accordance with a data transfer instruction from each of the allocation means (113) for allocating at least a part of the storage area as a communication buffer in 1) and the plurality of processing means (101), a logical address indicating the corresponding communication buffer is transferred to the transfer destination. A data transfer control device comprising: a transmission means (114) for transmitting to a processing means (101) that becomes