JPH0530154A - Hierarchical protocol processing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To speed up a data transfer processing in a communication controller executing a hierarchical protocol processing. CONSTITUTION:A communication control processor is multiprocessor constituted by a first processor (3) supported by OS supplying a high process control function and a second processor (2) supported by simple OS. The second processor 2 executes a boundary processing between layers and the collective processing of a protocol header for plural layers independent of the first processor 3.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication control processing device for processing hierarchical protocols.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the increase in transmission speed, services for transferring a large amount of data such as high-definition image information and large-capacity files have become apparent, and the speed of communication control processing devices for hierarchical protocol processing has increased. is necessary.

In the layered protocol processing, from the viewpoint of clarification of service contents, easiness of specification change, etc.
Clarify the functional units of the service, and when realizing them, modularize each functional unit from the viewpoint of improving program productivity. This module is processed as a process under an advanced OS having a process processing capability. Therefore, the processing time of the communication control processing includes the process control processing time in addition to the protocol processing time.

Protocol processing is performed by setting a connection /
It consists of a release phase and a data transfer phase after connection setting. In a large amount of data transfer, the processing time of the data transfer phase occupies most of the protocol processing time. Most of the processing in the data transfer phase is data disassembly / assembly and header addition / deletion based on the difference in data transfer units between the upper layer and the lower layer. Therefore, the amount of protocol processing per data transfer unit is small.

On the other hand, in the process control processing, there are controls such as a process switch and its schedule, inter-process communication processing, etc., and this processing often exceeds the processing amount of the protocol processing described above. In such an environment, if process control is called at the boundary of each layer every time data is transferred, there is a problem that this becomes an overhead of communication control processing.

Conventionally, as a method of reducing the processing time of the process control in the communication control processing, there is a method of reducing the chances of needing the process control by collectively collecting the data transfer control of a plurality of layers into one module. ing.

[0007]

This method has a drawback that process control is left at a service access point between a lower layer and an upper layer than the plurality of layers.

An object of the present invention is to provide a hierarchical protocol processing method which eliminates this drawback and speeds up data transfer processing.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks, the present invention limits the communication control processor, apart from an OS-assisted first processor providing advanced process control functions, to a very limited extent. Which provides only process control, but has a multiprocessor configuration including a second processor supported by a simple OS (control program) with little overhead, and a layer lower than a plurality of layers processed by the second processor in this communication control. It is characterized in that the data transfer control can be performed independently of the first processor, which has a large process control overhead, by performing the boundary processing between and and the batch processing of the protocol headers over a plurality of layers.

[0010]

According to the present invention having the above-mentioned configuration, normal data transfer control can be handled by the second processor with a small amount of process control processing. That is, the second processor receives a data transfer unit from a layer lower than the plurality of layers and / or an upper layer by an interrupt, and if it is a normal data transfer request, the headers of the plurality of layers are collectively processed. And send it to the upper layer or lower layer.

Since the amount of header processing is extremely small,
While processing the data transfer unit after being interrupted, it is possible to perform processing in one pass with the interrupt disabled state.
If processing can be performed in the interrupt disabled state in this way, process save / restore processing, schedule processing, etc. can be reduced. In addition, the types of interrupt causes can be limited to a very small number, interrupt analysis can be simplified, and process control can be simplified and simplified, and the amount of processing can be suppressed to a minimum.
Therefore, if the process control processing time of the advanced OS in the first processor is T and the process control processing time in the second processor is t, then t << T can be obtained,
Process control overhead can be reduced.

Further, according to the present invention, when there is an abnormality in the content received from the lower layer, or when the content received requests other than the above-mentioned data transfer control, the second processor is the communication processing means. Requests the first processor for processing. Therefore, functions other than the above-mentioned data transfer control can be processed under the support of the high-level process control of the first processor, so that it can be modularized and protocol specifications can be easily added / changed and programmed. Even if the function of the second processor is limited to a simple one, the burden on the specification change and programming is small.

Further, according to the present invention, even if the processing of the data transfer phase becomes highly functional and the first processor is required for a part of the processing, it is effective in reducing the process control time. For example, when the data transfer unit A with the upper layer of the plurality of layers is decomposed into m data transfer units a _i (i = 1, 2, ..., M) with the lower layer and handled. Processes a series of data transfer control with the lower layer by the second processor, requests the subsequent data transfer control to the first processor, and the first processor performs the processing and the succeeding upper layer. It can be configured to take charge of boundary processing between. In the case of such a configuration, the conventional process control time (m + 1) × T is shortened to m × t + 2T. In high-speed communication control processing that handles a large amount of data transfer, the data transfer unit A tends to be large when a service is requested from the upper layer, and the lower layer reduces the data transfer unit in order to improve the efficiency of the transmission line as usual. Therefore, m becomes large, and in such a case, the effect of reducing the process control time is large.

Therefore, according to the present invention, the above-mentioned drawbacks can be solved and a high-speed hierarchical protocol processing device can be achieved while maintaining desirable features such as clarification of service contents, easiness of specification change, and improvement of program productivity. Can be provided.

[0015]

1 is a functional block diagram including a layered protocol processing device 6 for performing protocol processing from layer N to layer N + n in one embodiment of the present invention. The storage unit 1 stores the service data unit (SDU) from the lower layer (layer N-1) device 4 or the upper layer (layer N + n).
+1) Buffer storage for receiving and temporarily holding the SDU from the device 5. The processor 2 is a second processor that performs boundary processing with the lower layer device 4 or the upper layer device 5 and data transfer control processing. The processor 3 is a first processor that performs protocol processing other than the boundary processing and data transfer control described above.

Next, regarding the operation of this embodiment, CCITT Recommendation X. 224 Class 0, CCITT Recommendation X.2 as a Layer 5 protocol. An example of selecting a 225 kernel + full duplex and making a data transfer request from the upper layer when disassembling / assembling data units in layer 4 will be described with reference to FIG.

The state from the layer N to the layer N + n is in the data transfer phase, that is, the layers 4 and 5 are in the data transfer phase, and the protocol processing device 6 of the layer receives the data transfer request 21 from the upper layer device 5. Upon receiving the data transfer request, the second processor 2 receives the data transfer request through the interrupt interface i-2 and activates the process control thereof. In the process control, the self-confidence is disabled and the protocol processing process for data transfer control is started. That is, the request analysis of the SDU from the upper layer already written in the storage unit 1, the normality check, the state check and management of the layers 4 and 5 are performed, and if there is no abnormality, the above SDU is m protocol data units. (PDU) and layer 4 for the first PDU,
The header of layer 5 is generated and added at once. Then, a transmission instruction 22 is issued as an SDU to the lower layer device 4, and protocol processing such as generation / addition of the header of the next PDU is performed so as to be parallel to the data transfer from the storage unit 1 to the lower layer device 4. .. After this processing, the process returns to the process control, the process control releases the interrupt, and waits for the data transfer end report interrupt from the lower layer device 4.
When the interrupt 23 of the data transfer end report is received from the interrupt interface i-1, the process control activates the protocol process in the interrupt disabled state, and the header is already added to the lower layer device 4 as described above. The SDU transmission instruction is issued, and the storage unit 1 outputs the lower layer device 4
Protocol processing such as generation / addition of the header of the next PDU is performed in parallel with the data transfer to. Thereafter, the above processing is repeated until the processing of the last SDU transmission request is completed. During this time, the second processor 2 performs data transfer control independently of the first processor 3 with respect to this data transfer. When data transfer of all PDUs is completed,
The second processor 2 carries out the remaining protocol processing 24 such as state management and, if necessary, issuing an SDU for data transfer confirmation to the upper layer device 5. When the second processor 2 receives the protocol processing request 21 from the upper layer device 5 and detects that the layer 4 and / or layer 5 is not in the data transfer phase, or requests the SDU from the upper layer device 5. If the second processor 2 detects that it is not a data transfer such as connection establishment / release, or if there is an error in the SDU, the second processor 2 sends the subsequent processing to the first processor 3 through the bus line i-3. Request 2
Do 5.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram including a layered protocol processing device 36 according to another embodiment of the present invention. Unlike FIG. 1, the first processor 3 is used in this embodiment.
3 is an interrupt interface 3 with the upper layer device 35.
This is an example in which i-2 is provided. A case where data is received from the lower layer device 34 according to this embodiment will be described.

The reception report of the data transfer instruction of the data transfer unit a _i from the lower layer device 34 is received by the second processor 32 through the interrupt interface 3i-1.
After confirming that the states from layers N to N + n are in the data transfer phase, the second processor 32 collectively examines a plurality of headers of the data transfer unit a _i to confirm that they are normal, and When it is confirmed that the data transfer unit a _m is not received, the reception report is not sent to the upper layer device 35, that is, the processing request is not sent to the first processor 33, and the next data transfer unit a _{i + 1} is waited for. .. Upon confirming the reception of all the data transfer units a _i (i = 1, 2, ..., M), the second processor 32 reports the reception to the first processor 33 through the bus line 3i-3. The first processor 33 performs the remaining protocol processing relating to data transfer, state management processing, etc., prepares a data transfer unit A to the upper layer, and sends it to the upper layer device 35. If necessary, it waits for a response from the upper layer device 35, and this response is received by the first processor 33 at the interrupt interface 3i-2, and the result is sent to the lower layer device through the second processor 32. In this way, the second processor 32 can process independently of the first processor 33 during the control of the m data transfers to and from the lower layer devices, and thus the conventional advanced OS assisted process. The control processing time mT can be reduced to the process control time mt by the simple OS.

In this embodiment, each of the first processor and the second processor is a single processor, but each may be configured as a multiprocessor.

[0021]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to reduce the process control processing that occurs due to a large number of data transfers, and it is possible to speed up the communication control processing. Furthermore, complicated control of connection setting / cancellation, abnormal processing, etc. can be realized with the support of a high-level OS.
Ease of changing protocol specifications and high program productivity can be secured.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a layered protocol processing device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of data transfer control.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a layered protocol processing device according to another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Storage Unit 2 Second Processor 3 First Processor 4 Lower Layer Device 5 Upper Layer Device 6 Hierarchical Protocol Processing Device i-1 Interrupt Interface i-2 Interrupt Interface i-3 Bus Line 31 Storage Unit 32 Second Processor 33 First processor 34 Lower layer device 35 Upper layer device 36 Hierarchical protocol processing device 3i-1 Interrupt interface 3i-2 Interrupt interface 3i-3 Bus line

Claims (1)

Claim: What is claimed is: 1. In a communication control method for processing a layered protocol, a communication control processing device for performing protocol processing of some of a plurality of layers is provided with a connection control processing of each layer. A first processor for performing abnormal processing, and a second processor for controlling data transfer, wherein the second processor has a process control means having a processing amount smaller than that of the first processor, and a layer lower than the layer. Means for performing the boundary processing with the device for processing
It is provided with means for collectively processing generation, addition, and deletion of protocol headers over the plurality of layers, and means for detecting processing requests other than the above-mentioned data transfer control, and further comprising a first processor and a second processor. A method for hierarchical protocol processing, comprising means for communication between devices, and when the second processor detects a processing request other than the data transfer, the subsequent protocol processing is passed to the first processor for processing. ..