Installation guide

PCI-SB StarFabric PCI Interface Card Installation Guide 2-19
How StarFabric Technology Works
FIGURE 11. Address Routing for Legacy PCI Mode
In address routed or legacy PCI mode, StarFabric-enabled devices behave as nor-
mal legacy PCI bridges because they are unaware that they are part of a fabric.
Path Routing Application
Path Routing provides a more flexible and reliable PCI bus topology because it
doesn’t rely on one path to connect two devices.
Path routing lets you define class of service, bandwidth allocation, and best paths to
connect a source device to a target device in the PCI topology. It lets you allocate
resources by statistically defining connections between devices based on amount of
traffic and device availability.
This means you can dynamically route traffic through the PCI topology on request
or based on bandwidth requirements or the availability of a particular device, as
shown in Figure 12.
Remote StarFabric Device
Root Bridge
PCI-SB Interface
PCI-SB card
configured as
Root bridge
A break in a link here
means this remote
device is unreachable
All StarFabric-enabled
devices are identified at
power-up and topology
remains static