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EP80579 Software for Security Applications on Intel
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QuickAssist Technology
August 2009 PG
Order Number: 320183-004US 29
QAT Access Layer Architecture Overview—Security Software
5.0 QAT Access Layer Architecture Overview
5.1 What’s New in this Chapter
No updates in this release.
5.2 Overview
The QAT Access Layer (QAT-AL) is responsible for management and configuration of the
SSU and the driver firmware for the SSU running on the ASU. The QAT-AL component is
initiated and started by the Acceleration System Driver (ASD) and stopped and
shutdown afterwards also by the ASD.
After initialization of QAT-AL is executed, startup must be executed, followed by stop
and then shutdown before QAT-AL can be initialized again.
The QAT-AL is responsible for:
1. Setup and test the entropy sample for Random Number Generation.
2. Setup communications structures for communication to and from the ASU
(Acceleration Service Unit).
3. Sending the command messages to start and stop the firmware driver for the SSU
(Security Services Unit).
4. Provide Version information and liveness of the SSU and the firmware driver of the
SSU to the Debug Component.
5. Provide various statistics about the running of the SSU and communication rings.
The QAT-AL provides to other users:
1. A communications interface to communicate with the ASU.
2. A communication interface to allow other components to retest the entropy sample.
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