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EP-4391496-B1 - NETWORKING CONTROL ENGINE EMBEDDED IN A PLATFORM

EP4391496B1EP 4391496 B1EP4391496 B1EP 4391496B1EP-4391496-B1

Inventors

  • IDAN, NEVO
  • HAMAMI, ILAN
  • RESHEF, EHUD
  • HAREUVENI, OFER
  • SHUSTERMAN, MICHAEL

Dates

Publication Date
20260513
Application Date
20221223

Claims (15)

  1. A networking control engine, NCE, (110) included in a platform as a hardware module for network connectivity and data transfer control and management, the platform further including a main processing core for running an operating system, one or more platform engines, and one or more network interface cards, the NCE (110) comprising: one or more end point glue logic (114a-114k), each end point glue logic (114a-114k) being a dedicated custom logic circuitry configured to specifically interface with one of the platform engines (120a-120n) or the operating system; an execution core (112) comprising a processing unit and a hardware accelerator for packet processing and network protocol stack processing; and one or more network interface card glue logic (116a-116m), each network interface card glue logic (116a-116m) being a dedicated custom logic circuitry configured to specifically interface with one of the network interface cards (130a-130m), wherein the execution core (112) is configured to control network interfaces for the operating system and the platform engines (120a-120n) and control data connectivity and data transfer among the operating system, the one or more platform engines (120a-120n), and the network interface cards (130a-130m).
  2. The NCE of claim 1, wherein the execution core (112) is configured to provide contextual information to the operating system or the one or more platform engines on the platform.
  3. The NCE of claim 2, wherein the contextual information includes location information based on received signal strength measurements, high accuracy ranging information, and/or channel sounding-based environmental sensing information.
  4. The NCE as in any one of claims 1-3, wherein the execution core (112) is configured to select a network interface card among a plurality of network interface cards for a required operation, perform network interface card power state management, and/or configure a network interface card to execute required activities.
  5. The NCE as in any one of claims 1-4, wherein the execution core (112) is configured to schedule activities based on aggregate requests from a host operating system, guest operating systems on the platform, and/or the platform engines (120a-120n).
  6. The NCE of claim 1-5, wherein the execution core (112) is configured to transfer data between the one or more platform engines (120a-120n) and the one or more network interface cards (130a-130m) without management by the operating system.
  7. The NCE as in any one of claims 1-6, wherein the execution core (112) is configured to abstract networking details from the operating system and the one or more platform engines (120a-120n).
  8. The NCE as in any one of claims 1-7, wherein the execution core (112) is configured to handover between the network interfaces based on predetermined criteria.
  9. The NCE as in any one of claims 1-8, wherein the execution core (112) includes a networking-oriented operating system including all required networking protocol stack for transmitting and receiving data over a network.
  10. The NCE as in any one of claims 1-9, wherein the execution core (112) is configured to transfer video data and/or audio data between a platform engine and a network interface card without management by the operating system.
  11. The NCE as in any one of claims 1-10, wherein the execution core (112) is configured to transfer data packets between two network interface cards for tethering without management by the operating system.
  12. The NCE as in any one of claims 1-11, wherein the execution core (112) is configured to inspect packets transferred between the end point glue logic and the network interface card glue logic and monitor certain activities on a packet flow.
  13. The NCE as in any one of claims 1-12, wherein the execution core (112) is configured to perform packet classification on packets and perform actions based on the packet classification.
  14. The NCE as in any one of claims 1-13, wherein the execution core (112) includes network connectivity and data transfer control and management capabilities.
  15. A system comprising the NCE as in any one of claims 1-14.

Description

Background Analyzing future trends, the location of intellectual property work will diversify. Advancing work will drive innovations in infrastructure that enable secure and seamless connection to enterprise networks regardless of where the user is. People will be experimenting with personalized assistants that will make the creation process much easier. Personal computing will undergo reframing in both form factors and definition, connecting various other multiple connected devices. These days, computing may rely on connectivity and cloud services, and the quality of user experience, power-performance tradeoffs, and security may depend on platform architecture and infrastructure for best-in-class operations. Conventional solutions rely on operation system (OS) or host software (SW) level support for connection management and data transfer control. Such solutions depend on the OS and SW efficiency (performance, power, etc.) and availability. The networking flows, involving host OS/SW for data transfer creation and shaping, suffer from power and performance loss relative to hardware (HW)/embedded solutions. Latency impact may be tens of milli-seconds for display rendering with additional power impact hundreds of milli-watts. Additionally, OS and SW reliability and security might become a weak link when considering the networking services premise for service continuity and cybersecurity. Shantharama Prateek et al., "Hardware-Accelerated Platforms and Infrastructures for Network Functions: A Survey of Enabling Technologies and Research Studies", IEEE ACCESS, IEEE, USA, vol. 8, 9 July 2020, pages 132021 -1 32085, XP011800789, discloses that in order to facilitate flexible network service virtualization and migration, network functions (NFs) are increasingly executed by software modules (softwarized NFs) on general purpose computing (GPC) platforms. Shantharama Prateek et al. discloses that traditionally, the term "network function (NF)" applied primarily to functions of the lower network protocol layers, and these low-level NFs were usually executed in specially designed dedicated networking equipment, such as switches, routers, and gateways. Shantharama Prateek et al. discloses that the area of networking moves towards implementing NFs as software entities on GPC platforms. FIG. 1 shows GPC platform hardware to process the softwarized NFs. US 2020/0142683 relates to a software update system. US 2020/0142683 discloses that an Information Handling System (IHS) includes a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) that is coupled to an OS-to-BMC interface, wherein the BMC is configured to identify OS software update, transmit the OS software updates through the OS-to-BMC interface, and provide the component software updates for a plurality of components. FIG. 2 shows the software update system that provides for the updating of server component firmware, operating system drivers, operating system applications, or other software. US 2019/0042755 relates to information handling systems. US 2019/0042755 discloses that the information handling system can be divided into a host portion and an operating system portion. The host portion of the information handling system includes a service processor and a BIOS. The OS portion of the information handling system includes operating system, a memory, a network interface card, a central processing unit, and a disk. Brief description of the Figures Some examples of apparatuses and/or methods will be described in the following by way of example only, and with reference to the accompanying figures, in which FIG. 1 shows an example system including a networking control entity (NCE) in accordance with one example;FIG. 2 shows an example architecture of an NCE;FIG. 3A shows an example scenario for wireless display offloading;FIG. 3B shows an example process of video/audio transmission for playing on a display/speaker.FIG. 3C shows an example processing by the NCE for the wireless display offloading;FIG. 4A shows an example scenario for audio streaming offloading;FIG. 4B shows an example for audio streaming offloading to a remote wireless speaker;FIG. 5 shows an example scenario for tethering;FIG. 6 shows an example scenario that the NCE is configured to perform traffic monitoring;FIG. 7 shows an example scenario that the NCE is configured to perform traffic management;FIG. 8 shows an example scenario that the platform includes a sensor hub;FIG. 9 shows an architecture of hypervisor;FIG. 10 illustrates a user device in which the examples disclosed herein may be implemented; andFIG. 11 illustrates a base station or infrastructure equipment radio head in which the examples disclosed herein may be implemented. Detailed Description Various examples will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings in which some examples are illustrated. In the figures, the thicknesses of lines, layers and/or regions may be exaggerated for clarity. Accordingly, while further example