Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090034728 | Multiplexed multilane hybrid scrambled transmission coding - In one embodiment, a hybrid backplane coding scheme transmits data using lengthy sequences of scrambled data, separated by 8b/10b control character sequences that prepare the receiver for the next scrambled sequence and permit realignment if necessary. Several lanes are coded separately in this manner, and then multiplexed on a common channel. Alignment sequences in the control character sequences, as well as scrambler seeds, are set to avoid synchronization of patterns generated among all lanes, which would tend to confuse a receiving serdes and/or phase-locked loop that recovers timing from the multiplexed scrambled signals. | 02-05-2009 |
20110222547 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FLEXIBLE MEMORY SYSTEM CONFIGURATION AND ACCESS - A packet network device includes a packet network processor memory system for storing information used to process and forward packets of information in and through the network device. The information is included in look-up tables whose entries can be mapped either horizontally or vertically into the memory system. In the event that the entries are mapped horizontally, a complete entry can be access at a single memory location and in the event that the entries are mapped vertically, the entries can be accessed at one or more memory locations. | 09-15-2011 |
20110225207 | VIRTUAL NETWORK DEVICE ARCHITECTURE - A network device such as a router or a switch is comprised of a control module and a plurality of physical line cards. The control module includes a control processor virtual machine, a plurality of route processing virtual machines and one or more instances of a line card virtual machine. The line card virtual machine operates to receive routing information base update information, to modify the routing information base according to the update information and to update each instance of a plurality of forwarding information bases included on each of the physical line cards. | 09-15-2011 |
20110235545 | MAC-Address Based Virtual Route Aggregation - An autonomous system includes at least some packet network devices that are capable of operating in a virtual route aggregation environment and some packet network devices that are not capable of operating in a virtual route aggregation environment. The autonomous system includes at least one egress border router, at least one aggregation router and at least one intermediate router. The egress border router uses an interior border gateway protocol to distribute a label message to the other routers in the autonomous system, the label message including a next hop MAC address associated with either an external router or the egress border router. The egress border router and the intermediate router using information included in the label message to contrast layer 2 table entries and the aggregation router using information included in the label message to construct a layer 3 table entry. The aggregation router receives a packet with a virtual prefix that corresponds to a virtual prefix in a list of virtual prefixes stored by the aggregation router, and routes the packet over a virtual path corresponding to one of the virtual prefixes. | 09-29-2011 |
20120002670 | MULTIPLE CHASSIS STACKING USING FRONT END PORTS - A stacked chassis comprising multiple physical switch/router chassis operates without any special stacking hardware or stacking channels. Instead, a stacking LAG is installed between front-end switch ports on the stacked chassis. The chassis controllers negotiate a master, which controls operation of all chassis in the stack. A stacked-chassis-wide port numbering scheme is used to distribute information to all line cards in the system. Each line card processes the information to distill physical-chassis significant information for operation of that chassis in the stack. | 01-05-2012 |
20120020373 | PACKET FORWARDING USING MULTIPLE STACKED CHASSIS - A stacked chassis comprising multiple physical switch/router chassis operates without any special stacking hardware or stacking channels. Instead, a stacking LAG is installed between front-end switch ports on the stacked chassis. The chassis controllers negotiate a master, which controls operation of all chassis in the stack. A stacked-chassis-wide port numbering scheme is used to distribute information to all line cards in the system. Each line card processes the information to distill physical-chassis significant information for operation of that chassis in the stack. | 01-26-2012 |
20120039335 | MULTICAST PACKET FORWARDING USING MULTIPLE STACKED CHASSIS - A stacked chassis comprising multiple physical switch/router chassis operates without any special stacking hardware or stacking channels. Instead, a stacking LAG is installed between front-end switch ports on the stacked chassis. The chassis controllers negotiate a master, which controls operation of all chassis in the stack. A stacked-chassis-wide port numbering scheme is used to distribute information to all line cards in the system. Each line card processes the information to distill physical-chassis significant information for operation of that chassis in the stack. | 02-16-2012 |
20120201169 | METHOD & APPARATUS FOR PROVISIONING A NETWORK SWITCH PORT - A network switch is comprised of a control processor and one or more line cards. The control processor includes functionality to register interest with a hypervisor, operating in conjunction with a network host connected to the switch, in data object attributes maintained on the network host by the hypervisor. The hypervisor associated with the network host sends changes in the host attributes to the switch which the switch maintains in a listing of attributes. The switch traps and copies particular packets to the switch control processor where a provisioning function operates on the attribute information in the list with source information included in the packet header in order to configure a forwarding table on the line card. | 08-09-2012 |
20120201241 | METHOD & APPARATUS FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF NETWORK TRAFFIC - A packet network device, such as a router or switch, includes functionality that operates to receive network traffic, process the traffic as needed and to forward the traffic to its destination. Additionally, each router includes a weighted equal cost multipath routing function that operates to identify equal cost paths over which to forward the network traffic, to calculate a path weighting that is dependent upon the path bandwidth and to forward the traffic ingressing to it over each of the equal cost paths according to the calculated path weighting. | 08-09-2012 |
20120236859 | METHOD & APPARATUS FOR CONFIGURING A LINK AGGREGATION GROUP ON A STACKED SWITCH - Two network switches are configured in a stacked relationship to each other and include link aggregation sub-layer functionality. Switching tables are programmed on each switch with information used to forward packets ingressing to them over a redundant LAG that is identified in the switching table by a port that is a member of the redundant LAG. | 09-20-2012 |
20120259761 | Low Latency Financial Data Network Architecture - A financial market data network having a lowered overall latency includes communication interfaces, specialized switches having internal switching fabric, and feed handlers that all facilitate communications between financial exchanges and consumers of financial market data therefrom. A feed handler is situated within or proximate a specialized switch and is arranged to receive raw financial market data directly from financial exchanges without the data first traveling through any switching fabric. The feed handler is adapted to process the received raw financial market data into a normalized format before the normalized financial market data is ever routed through any switching fabric, prior to being sent to consumers. The communication interfaces can include I/O ports located on the specialized switches, and the feed handlers can include one or more computer processors or servers. Additional internal switch components can include packet processors and storage components that store network protocols and/or layer tables. | 10-11-2012 |
20120275297 | Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation on Network Devices - A data communication network includes a client device and multiple aggregation devices coupled to each other and the client via links within a link aggregation group (“LAG”) across the aggregation devices. The aggregation devices appear to the client as a single device coupled thereto, and operate in conjunction with each other by assigning at least one different identifier to each of the plurality of separate aggregation devices and storing information including the identifiers to association tables located on each of the aggregation devices. The multiple aggregation devices can be separate switches, and the LAG can include multiple ports across the switches, with a different identifier being assigned to each of the ports in the LAG. A virtual link trunk interface can couple aggregation devices, which can reconfigure communication paths thereacross with respect to the client device using the identifiers in the stored association tables when a LAG link fails. | 11-01-2012 |
20120320929 | PACKET FORWARDING USING MULTIPLE STACKED CHASSIS - A stacked chassis comprising multiple physical switch/router chassis operates without any special stacking hardware or stacking channels. Instead, a stacking LAG is installed between front-end switch ports on the stacked chassis. The chassis controllers negotiate a master, which controls operation of all chassis in the stack. A stacked-chassis-wide port numbering scheme is used to distribute information to all line cards in the system. Each line card processes the information to distill physical-chassis significant information for operation of that chassis in the stack. | 12-20-2012 |
20130039218 | LIMITING MAC ADDRESS LEARNING ON ACCESS NETWORK SWITCHES - A LAN includes a CORE switch linked to some number of TOR switches, and each of the TOR switches are linked directly to some number of host devices. Each of the switches in the LAN operate to process and transmit data frames they receive from neighboring LAN devices. Each TOR switch in the LAN builds and maintains a layer-2 forwarding table that is comprised of MAC address information learned from frames they receive from neighboring LAN devices. Selected ports/VLANs on some or all of the TOR devices are designated to be CORE/switch facing ports (CFP) or host facing ports (HFP). Each of the CFPs are configured to only learn the MAC address in unicast frames it receives and each of the HFPs can be configured to learn the MAC address of both unicast and multicast data frames provided the destination MAC address included in the unicast frame is known. | 02-14-2013 |
20130044748 | DATA SWITCHING SYSTEM - A data switching system is disclosed that allows for switching of packets through a plurality of top of rack switches utilizing a logical switching fabric that includes a local TOR switching fabric on a TOR switch and a Core switching fabric on a Core switch. A method of processing packets according to some embodiment can include receiving a packet from a source port into a top of rack switch, the source port being one of a plurality of ports on the top of rack switch, processing a packet header of the packet to determine a destination port; and switching the packet through a logical switching fabric that includes a local switch fabric on the top of rack switch and a Core switching fabric on a Core switch. | 02-21-2013 |
20130124750 | NETWORK VIRTUALIZATION WITHOUT GATEWAY FUNCTION - A local network, such as a data center, includes a plurality of servers each of which are linked to a network switch. Some of the plurality of servers are network virtualization capable and some are not. The network virtualization capable servers include functionality that encapsulates a data frame, generated by one network virtualization servers that is to be sent to another network virtualization capable server, with a network virtualization identity. In the event that a network virtualization server generates a data frame for transmission to a server that is not capable of network virtualization, the network virtualization capable server does not encapsulate the data frame with the network virtualization identity. | 05-16-2013 |
20130272165 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVISIONING A NETWORK SWITCH PORT - A network switch is comprised of a control processor and one or more line cards. The control processor includes functionality to register interest with a hypervisor, operating in conjunction with a network host connected to the switch, in data object attributes maintained on the network host by the hypervisor. The hypervisor associated with the network host sends changes in the host attributes to the switch which the switch maintains in a listing of attributes. The switch traps and copies particular packets to the switch control processor where a provisioning function operates on the attribute information in the list with source information included in the packet header in order to configure a forwarding table on the line card. | 10-17-2013 |
20130301640 | METHOD & APPARATUS FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF NETWORK TRAFFIC - A packet network device, such as a router or switch, includes functionality that operates to receive network traffic, process the traffic as needed and to forward the traffic to its destination. Additionally, each router includes a weighted equal cost multipath routing function that operates to identify equal cost paths over which to forward the network traffic, to calculate a path weighting that is dependent upon the path bandwidth and to forward the traffic ingressing to it over each of the equal cost paths according to the calculated path weighting. | 11-14-2013 |
20130336134 | SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR OPEN FABRIC MANAGEMENT - A system for operating a plurality of information handling systems forming a network including a plurality of switches is provided. The switches include physical and virtual switches each having ports coupling information handling systems to one another. The system including a management unit configured to provide commands to the switches and to collect a status information for each of the switches; and an agent unit coupled to each of the switches, the agent configured to receive the commands from the management unit, provide the commands to the switch associated thereto, monitor status of the switch associated thereto, and provide the status information to the management unit. A method for operating a network and a computer program to perform the method for using a system as above is also provided. A network managing device configured to couple to a service provider in a network as above is also provided. | 12-19-2013 |
20140119203 | USE OF TEST PACKETS BY PACKET SWITCHES IN COMPUTER NETWORKS - A packet switch receives a management packet sent for discovery on a data flow's path through a network. The switch creates a test packet ( | 05-01-2014 |
20140119371 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR STACKING FIBRE CHANNEL SWITCHES WITH FIBRE CHANNEL OVER ETHERNET STACKING LINKS - An information handling system is provided. The information handling system includes systems and methods for expanding the port count in a single Fibre Channel domain by adding modular Fibre Channel switches. Such a system includes a system enclosure that contains a plurality of Fibre Channel modules configured to send and receive Fibre Channel packets, the Fibre Channel modules providing a plurality of Fibre Channel ports and a switch processor coupled to the plurality of Fibre Channel ports and to a plurality of Ethernet ports. The switch processor is configured to apply a stacking header to Fibre Channel packets for transmission from one of the plurality of Ethernet ports over a stacking link to another switch processor in another system enclosure. | 05-01-2014 |
20140169365 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ROUTING INFORMATION IN AN INFORMATION HANDLING SYSTEM USING EXTENDED L3 LOOKUP TABLES - An information handling system is provided. The information handling system includes a plurality of forwarding processors, the plurality of forwarding processors each including a memory having a forwarding host table and a forwarding route table. The information handling system also includes at least one switching device coupled to the plurality of forwarding processors, the at least one switching device including a memory having a destination module and port table, a switching device host table and a switching device route table, wherein the at least one switching device is configured to perform an extended lookup in at least one of the switching device host table and switching device route table based on values included in a fabric header of information routed to the switching device to determine a destination of the information. A method for extending lookup tables is also provided that adds lookup tables in a switching device. | 06-19-2014 |
20140192804 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROVIDING MULTICAST ROUTING IN AN OVERLAY NETWORK - An information handling system is provided. The information handling system includes a first hypervisor running on a first host and a second hypervisor running on a second host. The first hypervisor managing a first virtual switch, and the second hypervisor managing a second virtual switch. The information handling system also includes a plurality of virtual machines (VMs), including a first VM, which is part of a first tenant, running on the first host, and a second VM, part of a second tenant, running on the second host. The first virtual switch has a mapping in memory that maps a customer-specific multicast IP address, used by the plurality of VMs to indicate a multicast group that includes VMs on the first and second tenants, to a global multicast IP address used by the first and second hosts. | 07-10-2014 |
20140269710 | PORT EXTENDER - An extended bridge structure that includes a controlling bridge and port extenders is disclosed. A port extender according to some embodiments of the present invention includes a processor that processes receives packets in a way that executes at least one procedure that substitutes for a function of the controlling bridge. A controlling bridge according to the present invention provides data to the port extender that enables it to execute the at least one procedure that substitutes for a function of the controlling bridge. | 09-18-2014 |
20140341225 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FLEXIBLE SWITCHING FABRIC - A system and method for a flexible switching fabric includes a network switching device. The network switching device includes a plurality of connectors configured to couple the network switching device to other network devices, one or more front panel cards, each front panel card including one or more first ports and configured to forward network packets between the first ports, one or more fabric cards, each fabric card including one or more second ports and configured to forward network packets between the second ports, and a port multiplexing unit configured to flexibly couple the plurality of connectors to the one or more first ports and the one or more second ports to the one or more first ports. The flexible coupling between the one or more first ports and the plurality of connectors and the one or more second ports is determined based on a desired configuration for the network switching device. | 11-20-2014 |
20140355563 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR EFFICIENT L3 MOBILITY IN A WIRED/WIRELESS NETWORK - A system and method for efficiently handling mobility events includes detecting a mobility event associated with a movement of a mobile unit from a first subnet to a second subnet, forming one or more first flow control messages for updating routing information associated with the mobility event, transmitting the one or more first flow control messages to a core router, forming one or more second flow control messages for disabling layer 2 learning, transmitting the one or more second flow control messages to one or more network switching devices in the first subnet, forming one or more third flow control messages including layer 2 switching instructions for directing network traffic to the mobile unit in the second subnet, and transmitting the one or more third flow control messages. | 12-04-2014 |