Dolphin express: A transparent approach to enhancing PCI Express

Dolphin express solution, comprising PCI express based hardware and accompanying software, is an industry first solution for seamlessly integrating IO and clustering capabilities onto an enhanced PCI express interconnect. This eliminates the need for two separate interconnects - one for IO and the other for clustering. Dolphin express components enable IO expansion in a single-host platform and provide clustering as well as IO expansion support in a multi-host platform. The hardware component of the Dolphin express solution consists of a (i) host adapter (ii) cluster switch (Hi) cluster/IO expansion switch. The software component provides the critical infrastructure for allowing legacy applications to run without the need for code rewrite or recompilation. The overall solution is such that the existence of an enhanced PCI express interconnect is completely transparent to legacy software - both on the PCI express expansion front as well as on the clustering front.