US 11,722,436 B2
Transport control word architecture for physical port mirroring
Pasquale A. Catalano, Wallkill, NY (US); Michael James Becht, Poughkeepsie, NY (US); Christopher J. Colonna, Ossining, NY (US); and Stephen Robert Guendert, Poughkeepsie, NY (US)
Assigned to INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION, Armonk, NY (US)
Filed by International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US)
Filed on Aug. 24, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/409,884.
Prior Publication US 2023/0066682 A1, Mar. 2, 2023
Int. Cl. H04L 12/931 (2013.01); H04L 49/20 (2022.01); G06F 13/12 (2006.01); H04L 49/90 (2022.01); H04L 49/102 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 49/208 (2013.01) [G06F 13/126 (2013.01); H04L 49/102 (2013.01); H04L 49/9094 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
receiving, at an input/output (I/O) processor, a transport control word (TCW) that includes an instruction to perform physical port mirroring;
identifying, by the I/O processor based on a mirror indicator field and a mirror type field of the TCW, a first port to be mirrored and a second port to perform the mirroring, the second port a physical port on a host bus adapter (HBA);
in response to outbound data being sent to the first port for transmission to a first target device and based the mirror indicator field specifying outbound port mirroring, sending, by the I/O processor, a copy of the outbound data to a second target device via the second port; and
in response to receiving inbound data at the first port and based on the mirror indicator field specifying inbound port mirroring, transmitting a copy of the inbound data to the second target device via the second port,
wherein the mirror type field of the TCW indicates a specific sub-type of mirroring for the I/O processor to perform.