公开(公告)号：CA2228334A1

公开(公告)日：1998-08-19

申请号：CA2228334

申请日：1998-01-30

Applicant: IBM

Inventor： OVERBY LINWOOD HUGH ,  RAJARAMAN BALA ,  CAMPBELL SCOTT ALLAN ,  LONG LYNN DOUGLAS

IPC: G06F13/00 ,  G06F13/42 ,  H04L12/56 ,  H04L13/08 ,  H04L29/06 ,  H04L29/08 ,  H04L29/10 ,  H04L12/20 ,  H04L12/54

Abstract: Transmission control improves the performance in a communications system relating to transferring large data objects between domains or applications. This reduces or eliminates data movement between domains by transferring ownership of the "container" containing the data as opposed to moving the contents of the container from one domain to another domain resulting in copying the large data object. Thus, transmission control provides for control of the transmission of relatively large data objects between domains in a communications system which otherwise only allows efficient transmission of relatively small data objects between domains in a communications system. Tokens are assigned and associated with buffers containing the data to be shared. The token is not an address, but rather an identifier for the buffer which can be transferred from one domain to a second domain without requiring the copying of the data. The domain which originally requests the buffer is assigned a primary token and secondary tokens are assigned to each subsequent domain which also requests access to the buffer. A storage manager uniquely associates the buffer with the first domain and a primary token with the first buffer to permit the first domain to refer to the buffer. Secondary tokens are associated with the first buffer and subsequent domains also requesting the buffer. Thus, the buffer can be passed from the first domain to subsequent domains without physically moving the data. Once each domain is finished processing the data and the buffer is released by each domain, the buffer is released or reallocated and returned to a pool of available buffers. Alternatively, ownership of the buffer may be returned to the original domain that requested the buffer once processing of the buffer is completed by all domains.