| US 7,545,741 B1 | ||
| Technique for identifying a failed network interface card within a team of network interface cards | ||
| Hemamalini Manickavasagam, San Jose, Calif. (US); Ayaz Abdulla, Sunnyvale, Calif. (US); Norman K. Chen, Sunnyvale, Calif. (US); Ashutosh K. Jha, Sunnyvale, Calif. (US); Thomas A. Maufer, Menlo Park, Calif. (US); Sameer Nanda, Cupertino, Calif. (US); and Anand Rajagopalan, Saratoga, Calif. (US) | ||
| Assigned to NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, Calif. (US) | ||
| Filed on Dec. 15, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/303,285. | ||
| Int. Cl. H04J 1/16 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 370—230 [370/235; 370/389; 709/250] | 15 Claims |
| 1. A method for specifically identifying a failed network interface card (NIC) in a system having at least three NICs configured
as a team, the method comprising:
transmitting a first keep-alive data packet from a first NIC to a second NIC;
determining whether the second NIC receives the first keep-alive data packet from the first NIC;
if the second NIC does not receive the first keep-alive data packet from the first NIC, then transmitting a second keep-alive
data packet from a third NIC to the second NIC, or
if the second NIC does receive the first keep-alive data packet from the first NIC, then transmitting the second data keep-alive
data packet from the second NIC to the third NIC; and
after transmitting the second keep-alive data packet from the third NIC to the second NIC or after transmitting the second
keep-alive data packet from the second NIC to the third NIC, transmitting a third keep-alive data packet between the first
NIC and the third NIC,
wherein, based on the ability of each of the first NIC, second NIC and third NIC to transmit and receive the different keep-alive
data packets, a failure of any of the first NIC, second NIC or third NIC can be determined.
|