JP2757279B2 - Switch for Fiber Channel Standard System and Connection Method - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a switch for a fiber channel standard system for performing switching connection of a system using the fiber channel standard.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, various standards such as SCSI and RS-232C have been used for connecting a computer to an external device. These are individually established standards, and there is no inconvenience in connection.However, if devices of different standards are combined, the connection is simply lost in versatility and connection can be made without special conversion. There was no reality. Therefore, in order to allow individual standards as they are and connect devices of different standards to each other, an international standard (ANS
I, X3T9.3 / 93-254) have been proposed.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a conventional system using this standard. When connecting information processing apparatuses 1a and 1b having different external connection standards to each other, a fiber channel standard (hereinafter referred to as FCS) standard is used. Interface devices 2a and 2b adapted to the information processing device 1a,
1b, and an interface device 3 external to the device
a and 3b are connected. The interface devices 3a and 3b on the external side of the device are mutually connected via a cross point switch 4 or a packet mode switch 5 in this example. If the information processing apparatuses 1a and 1b handle a signal in a circuit switching mode in which a 1: 1 connection is made, the crosspoint switch 4 is selected, where the circuit switching is performed and a signal in a packet mode is handled. If there is, the packet mode switch 5 is selected and the packet switching process is performed.

[0004]

However, such a conventional device requires a function of discriminating between a circuit switching mode and a packet switching mode, and the information transmission capacity of a transmission line is limited. It is necessary to allocate the capacity for the circuit switching mode and the packet switching mode, but the capacity once allocated is fixed, so once the information is input beyond the allocated capacity once determined, the excess information will be There was a problem that transmission was not possible.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve such a problem, the present invention provides a header conversion unit for generating header information from destination information included in incoming input information, and converts the input information into a fixed-length cell. A cell division unit to be decomposed, a synthesis unit that adds the header information generated by the header conversion unit to the fixed-length information divided by the cell division unit to form a cell, and an output terminal specified by the header information of the cell. It has an autonomous routing switch for connecting information decomposed into fixed lengths, and a frame assembling unit for assembling a signal sent to an output terminal of the autonomous routing switch into original information. According to the invention of claim 2, a header indicating connection destination information requested by the transmitting side is generated from the N port login information transmitted from the transmitting side, and the information transmitted from the transmitting side is decomposed into fixed length information and generated. A cell is formed by adding a header, a cell is transmitted to a desired output terminal by controlling an autonomous routing switch based on the header information, and the transmitted cell is returned to the original information.

[0006]

When the N port login information is transmitted from the transmitting side, header information is generated based on the N port login information.
The signal sent from the originating side is decomposed into fixed length information, and the header information generated earlier is added to form a cell, and the cell is supplied to the autonomous routing switch,
By controlling the autonomous routing switch according to the header information, the fixed-length cells are transmitted to the output terminal represented by the header information. The transmitted signal is assembled as before and sent to the connection destination.

[0007]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention, and the same parts as those in FIG. When the information processing apparatus 1a attempts to transmit information by connecting to the information processing apparatus 1b via the FCS switch 20, an interface connected to the information processing apparatus 1a first connects the information processing apparatus 1a to the FCS switch 20. The device 2a sends F port login information to the FCS switch 20. This allows the FCS switch 20
Of the information processing apparatus 1a and the FC
An FCS link with the S switch 20 is established. After the link is established, the N-port login information having the destination N-port address, which is the destination address in the FCS network of the information processing apparatus 1b on the other side with which communication is to be performed,
The data is transmitted from the interface device 2a to the interface device 3a.

[0008] The interface device 3a receives the N-port log-in information and, based on the received information, uses the FCS switch 20
The terminal number of the information processing apparatus 1b which is the connection destination in is detected. As a result, the FCS switch 20 (not shown)
The central controller writes autonomous routing information specifying the connection destination terminal of the autonomous routing switch 10 in the header conversion unit 6a according to the detected information. At the same time, the N port login information from the information processing device 1a is divided into fixed length information by the cell division unit 7a. The N port login information divided by the cell division unit 7a is
The autonomous routing information written in the header conversion unit 6a in b is added as a header to form a cell shown in FIG. 2, and the cell is supplied to the autonomous routing switch 10.

The autonomous routing switch 10 connects a cell to an output terminal of the autonomous routing switch 10 by an internal switch element performing an autonomous connection operation based on each bit of the header information of the cell shown in FIG. It has become. The header information is stored in the information processing device 1b as described above.
Is written, the autonomous routing switch 10 is connected according to the information, and the cell synthesized by the synthesizing unit 9a is carried through the connected route.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the autonomous routing switch 10. In this example, a 3 × 3 individual switch 1 is shown.
0a to 10m. In this example, when the header information is "0", the cells supplied to the input terminals are connected to the individual switches 10a to 10m at the upper side as shown by the thick line in FIG. 3, and when the header information is "1". It is connected to the lower side as shown by the dotted line.

For this reason, as shown in FIG. 2, when the header information is "000", since all of the first to third bits are "0", the individual switches 10d, 10b,
10c is connected to the upper side as shown in FIG.

The cell sent to the output terminal of the autonomous routing switch 10 is supplied to the frame assembling unit 8b, where it is assembled into the original N-port login information. Then, the assembled N port login information is sent from the interface device 3b to the interface 2b, and the connection between the information processing device 1b and the FCS switch 20 is performed. When this connection is completed, the connection of the route from the information processing apparatus 1a to the information processing apparatus 2b is completed.

Thereafter, data information is sent from the interface 2a of the information processing device 1a to the interface device 3a of the FCS switch 20 in the form of an FCS frame.
In the FCS switch 20, the autonomous routing information written in the header conversion unit 6a by the N port login information is added as header information of fixed-length cells divided into a plurality of fixed-length cells by the cell division unit 7a.

The autonomous routing switch 10 autonomously sends a fixed-length cell to an output terminal according to autonomous routing information. The transmitted cells are assembled into the original information by the frame assembling unit 8b, and the interface devices 3b, 2
b to the information processing apparatus 1b.

By dividing the information to be transmitted into fixed-length information by the FCS switch 20 and attaching the divided information to a header and sending out the fixed-length cell, the autonomous routing switch used in the ATM is used. Will be able to Therefore, regardless of whether the information to be transmitted is information for the circuit switching system or information for packet switching, all the information is divided into cells of a fixed length, and the cells divided into the fixed length are used in ATM. Can be handled in common depending on the technology used. Therefore, it is not necessary to prepare both a crosspoint switch and a packet mode switch on the transmission path side. That is, since switching can be performed by a common switch, the circuit switching capacity can be prepared in common instead of individually prepared.

When the circuit switching capacity is prepared separately, even if the capacity on the other side is surplus, it is often impossible to use it for other purposes due to the difference in hardware configuration. On the other hand, there is a high possibility that the capacity becomes surplus. Although it is difficult to allocate the capacity, since all information is converted into fixed-length cells as in this example, the circuit switching capacity can be used in common, and in some cases most of the information is used for circuit switching. And at other times, most can be used for packet switching, eliminating the need to consider capacity allocation at all.

That is, since the external interface can be used in common by using the fiber channel standard system, it can handle both circuit switching and packet switching. The need to prepare two types of switches. As a result, it has become necessary to determine whether the input information is for circuit switching or packet switching in order to perform both exchanges, and to connect to an exchange switch corresponding to the input information accordingly.

In other words, the use of the Fiber Channel standard system has increased the expandability, causing various problems. Since these are caused by exchanging the input information as it is, in the present invention, whatever the input information is, it is decomposed into all fixed-length cells and used in ATM. The cells are exchanged by an autonomous routing switch, and cells output to a desired output terminal are assembled and output as before.

By doing so, there is no need to identify whether the input information is for circuit switching or packet switching, and accordingly, there is no need to sort the switching capacity between circuit switching and packet switching. Now have to be able to handle the highest traffic.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, the signal transmitted from the transmitting side is decomposed into fixed-length cells, and the header information generated based on the N-port login information transmitted from the transmitting side is added thereto. However, since the autonomous routing switch is controlled by the header information, there is an effect that the information of the circuit switching mode and the information of the packet switching mode can be commonly processed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a state where a header is added to information decomposed into fixed lengths.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of an autonomous routing switch.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a conventional device.

[Explanation of symbols]

1a, 1b ... information processing device, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b ...
Interface device, 6a, 6b ... header conversion unit, 7
a, 7b: cell dividing section, 8a, 8b: frame assembling section,
9a, 9b: synthesis unit, 10: autonomous routing switch, 20: FCS switch.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) H04L 12/28 H04L 12/56

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A fiber channel standard system switch for switching and connecting both information of a packet switching mode and information of a circuit switching mode, a header conversion unit for generating header information from destination information included in incoming input information. A cell division unit that decomposes the input information into fixed-length information; and a synthesis unit that adds the header information generated by the header conversion unit to the fixed-length information divided by the cell division unit to form a cell. An autonomous routing switch that connects the fixed-length decomposed cell to an outgoing terminal specified by the header information; and a frame assembling unit that assembles a signal sent to the outgoing terminal of the autonomous routing switch into original information. A switch for a Fiber Channel standard system, comprising: 2. A connection method in which both information of a packet switching mode and information of a circuit switching mode are switched and connected by a switch for a Fiber Channel standard system, wherein N port login information including connection destination information transmitted from an originating side is used. Generates a header indicating the connection destination information requested by the caller, decomposes the information sent from the caller into fixed-length information, and adds the generated header to form a cell. A connection method comprising controlling an autonomous routing switch on the basis of the cell to transmit a cell to a desired output terminal, and returning the transmitted cell to the original information form.