COMPUTING SYSTEM FRAMEWORK WITH UNIFIED STORAGE, PROCESSING, AND NETWORK SWITCHING FABRICS INCORPORATING NETWORK SWITCHES AND METHOD FOR MAKING AND USING THE SAME

摘要

Systems and methods are provided for creating and using a computing system framework with unified storage, processing, and network switching structures. Physical or virtual, processing nodes are associated with intra-module ports, inter-module ports, and local storage spaces. A plurality of processing nodes are linked through intra-module ports to form processing modules. A plurality of processing modules are connected through inter-module ports to form a computing system. The network switch can be incorporated into intra-module or inter-module connections. Several inter-module connection schemes are disclosed that can be adapted for use with existing network packet routing algorithms. Each processing node is only needed to track the states of its directly connected neighbors, eliminating the need for high-speed connections to the remaining processing nodes in the system. Dedicated network switching equipment can be flexibly employed, and the network capacity naturally increases as processing nodes are added.