| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20090116398 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR FLOW MONITORING - A network device may include logic configured to receive a packet from a packet forwarding engine, create a flow ID for the packet, determine whether the flow ID matches one of a plurality of flow IDs in a table, determine whether the packet is associated with a flow to be sampled, sample the packet and additional packets associated with the flow that are received from the packet forwarding engine when the flow is to be sampled and transmit the flow ID and the sampled packets via a switch to an interface. | 05-07-2009 |
| 20100002382 | FRONT-TO-BACK COOLING SYSTEM FOR MODULAR SYSTEMS WITH ORTHOGONAL MIDPLANE CONFIGURATION - A front-to-back cooling system allows cooling of an apparatus containing two orthogonal sets of modules. Each set of modules is independently cooled. A vertical set of modules is cooled with vertical air flow across the modules that enters from a front of the apparatus and exhausts from a back of the apparatus. A horizontal set of modules is cooled with horizontal front-to-back air flow. When the horizontal set of modules is at the front of the apparatus, a plenum extending exterior to the vertical set of modules allows exhausting horizontally flowing air to the rear of the apparatus. When the horizontal set of modules is at the rear of the apparatus, a plenum extending exterior to the vertical set of modules allows moving air from the front of the apparatus to a chamber holding the horizontal modules. | 01-07-2010 |
| 20100061240 | METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO LOW LATENCY WITHIN A DATA CENTER - In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a switch core that has a multi-stage switch fabric. The multi-stage switch fabric has a set of ingress ports and a set of egress ports. The switch core can be configured to be coupled to a set of edge devices via the set of ingress ports and the set of egress ports. The switch core can be configured to receive a packet from an ingress port from the set of ingress ports. The switch core can be configured to send a set of cells associated with the packet from the ingress port to an egress port from the set of egress ports without a store-and-forward delay associated with a zero-load latency for the switch core. | 03-11-2010 |
| 20100061241 | METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO FLOW CONTROL WITHIN A DATA CENTER SWITCH FABRIC - In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a switch core that has a multi-stage switch fabric physically distributed among a set of chassis. The multi-stage switch fabric has a set of input buffers and a set of output ports. The switch core can be configured to be coupled to a set of edge devices. The apparatus can also include a controller implemented in hardware without software during operation and with software during configuration and monitoring. The controller can be coupled to the set of input buffers and the set of output ports. The controller can be configured to send a flow control signal to an input buffer from the set of input buffers when congestion at an output port from the set of output ports is predicted and before congestion in the switch core occurs. | 03-11-2010 |
| 20100061242 | METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO A FLEXIBLE DATA CENTER SECURITY ARCHITECTURE - In one embodiment, edge devices can be configured to be coupled to a multi-stage switch fabric and peripheral processing devices. The edge devices and the multi-stage switch fabric can collectively define a single logical entity. A first edge device from the edge devices can be configured to be coupled to a first peripheral processing device from the peripheral processing devices. The second edge device from the edge devices can be configured to be coupled to a second peripheral processing device from the peripheral processing devices. The first edge device can be configured such that virtual resources including a first virtual resource can be defined at the first peripheral processing device. A network management module coupled to the edge devices and configured to provision the virtual resources such that the first virtual resource can be migrated from the first peripheral processing device to the second peripheral processing device. | 03-11-2010 |
| 20100061367 | METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO LOSSLESS OPERATION WITHIN A DATA CENTER - In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a switch core that defines a single logical entity and has a multi-stage switch fabric that has a set of stages physically distributed across a set of chassis. The set of stages collectively has a set of ingress ports and a set of egress ports. The switch core can be configured to be coupled to a set of peripheral processing devices via the set of ingress ports and the set of egress ports. The switch core can be configured to admit a set of cells associated with a packet into an ingress port from the set of ingress ports when delivery of the set of cells can be substantially guaranteed without loss through the multi-stage switch fabric. | 03-11-2010 |
| 20100061389 | METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO VIRTUALIZATION OF DATA CENTER RESOURCES - In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a switch core that has a multi-stage switch fabric. A first set of peripheral processing devices coupled to the multi-stage switch fabric by a set of connections that have a protocol. Each peripheral processing device from the first set of peripheral processing devices is a storage node that has virtualized resources. The virtualized resources of the first set of peripheral processing devices collectively define a virtual storage resource interconnected by the switch core. A second set of peripheral processing devices coupled to the multi-stage switch fabric by a set of connections that have the protocol. Each peripheral processing device from the first set of peripheral processing devices is a compute node that has virtualized resources. The virtualized resources of the second set of peripheral processing devices collectively define a virtual compute resource interconnected by the switch core. | 03-11-2010 |
| 20100061391 | METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO A LOW COST DATA CENTER ARCHITECTURE - In one embodiment, an apparatus can include a first edge device that can have a packet processing module. The first edge device can be configured to receive a packet. The packet processing module of the first edge device can be configured to produce cells based on the packet. A second edge device can have a packet processing module configured to reassemble the packet based on the cells. A multi-stage switch fabric can be coupled to the first edge device and the second edge device. The multi-stage switch fabric can define a single logical entity. The multi-stage switch fabric can have switch modules. Each switch module from the switch modules can have a shared memory device. The multi-stage switch fabric can be configured to switch the cells so that the cells are sent to the second edge device. | 03-11-2010 |
| 20100061394 | METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO ANY-TO-ANY CONNECTIVITY WITHIN A DATA CENTER - In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a switch core that defines a single logical entity and has a multi-stage switch fabric physically distributed across a plurality of chassis. The multi-stage switch fabric has a plurality of ingress ports and a plurality of egress ports. The switch core is configured to be coupled to a plurality of peripheral processing devices via the plurality of ingress ports and the plurality of egress ports. The switch core is also configured to provide non-blocking connectivity at line rate between a first peripheral processing device disposed with a first chassis and a second peripheral processing device disposed within a second chassis. | 03-11-2010 |
| 20100106866 | FLOW CONSISTENT DYNAMIC LOAD BALANCING - A device provides a flow table. The device receives a data unit, determines a data flow associated with the data unit, determines whether the flow table includes an entry corresponding to the data flow, determines a current utilization of a group of output ports of the device, selects an output port, of the group of output ports, for the data flow based on the current utilization of the group of output ports when the flow table does not store an entry corresponding to the data flow, and stores the data unit in a queue associated with the selected output port. | 04-29-2010 |
| 20100165983 | SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE FOR A SCALABLE AND DISTRIBUTED MULTI-STAGE SWITCH FABRIC - In some embodiments, an apparatus includes a first housing, a second housing and at least one cable. The first housing includes a first interface card of a switch fabric. The second housing includes a second interface card of the switch fabric and a third interface card of the switch fabric. The second interface card of the switch fabric is operatively and physically coupled to the third interface card of the switch fabric via a midplane. The second interface card defines a plane that is nonparallel to the a plane defined by the third interface card and a plane defined by the midplane. The plane defined by the third interface card is nonparallel to the plane defined by the second interface card and the plane defined by the midplane. The cable is configured to operatively couple the first interface card to the second interface card. | 07-01-2010 |
| 20100165984 | METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO A MODULAR SWITCH ARCHITECTURE - In some embodiments, an apparatus includes a first housing, a second housing and at least one cable. The first housing includes a first interface card of a switch fabric. The second housing includes a second interface card of the switch fabric and a third interface card of the switch fabric. The second interface card of the switch fabric is operatively and physically coupled to the third interface card of the switch fabric via a midplane. The second interface card defines a plane that is nonparallel to the a plane defined by the third interface card and a plane defined by the midplane. The plane defined by the third interface card is nonparallel to the plane defined by the second interface card and the plane defined by the midplane. The cable is configured to operatively couple the first interface card to the second interface card. | 07-01-2010 |
| 20100226373 | TRACKING FRAGMENTED DATA FLOWS - A device may receive a fragment of a fragmented data unit, determine a flow identifier that identifies a data flow with which the fragment is associated, and create a flow entry, based on the flow identifier, to store information associated with the data flow. The device may also determine a fragment key associated with the fragment, store a pointer to the flow entry based on the fragment key, correlate the fragment and another fragment, associated with the data flow, based on the fragment key and the pointer to the flow entry, and accumulate statistics associated with the fragment and the other fragment after correlating the fragment and the other fragment. | 09-09-2010 |
| 20100246275 | METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO A SHARED MEMORY BUFFER FOR VARIABLE-SIZED CELLS - In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a shared memory buffer including a lead memory bank and a write multiplexing module configured to send a leading segment from a set of segments to the lead memory bank. The set of segments includes bit values from a set of variable-sized cells. The write multiplexing module further configured to send each segment from the set of segments identified as a trailing segment to a portion of the shared memory mutually exclusive from the lead memory bank. | 09-30-2010 |
| 20110011562 | FRONT-TO-BACK COOLING SYSTEM FOR MODULAR SYSTEMS WITH ORTHOGONAL MIDPLANE CONFIGURATION - A front-to-back cooling system allows cooling of an apparatus containing two orthogonal sets of modules. Each set of modules is independently cooled. A vertical set of modules is cooled with vertical air flow across the modules that enters from a front of the apparatus and exhausts from a back of the apparatus. A horizontal set of modules is cooled with horizontal front-to-back air flow. When the horizontal set of modules is at the front of the apparatus, a plenum extending exterior to the vertical set of modules allows exhausting horizontally flowing air to the rear of the apparatus. When the horizontal set of modules is at the rear of the apparatus, a plenum extending exterior to the vertical set of modules allows moving air from the front of the apparatus to a chamber holding the horizontal modules. | 01-20-2011 |
| 20110011567 | FRONT-TO-BACK COOLING SYSTEM FOR MODULAR SYSTEMS WITH ORTHOGONAL MIDPLANE CONFIGURATION - A front-to-back cooling system allows cooling of an apparatus containing two orthogonal sets of modules. Each set of modules is independently cooled. A vertical set of modules is cooled with vertical air flow across the modules that enters from a front of the apparatus and exhausts from a back of the apparatus. A horizontal set of modules is cooled with horizontal front-to-back air flow. When the horizontal set of modules is at the front of the apparatus, a plenum extending exterior to the vertical set of modules allows exhausting horizontally flowing air to the rear of the apparatus. When the horizontal set of modules is at the rear of the apparatus, a plenum extending exterior to the vertical set of modules allows moving air from the front of the apparatus to a chamber holding the horizontal modules. | 01-20-2011 |
| 20110013636 | TRACKING FRAGMENTED DATA FLOWS - A device may receive a fragment of a fragmented data unit, determine a flow identifier that identifies a data flow with which the fragment is associated, and create a flow entry, based on the flow identifier, to store information associated with the data flow. The device may also determine a fragment key associated with the fragment, store a pointer to the flow entry based on the fragment key, correlate the fragment and another fragment, associated with the data flow, based on the fragment key and the pointer to the flow entry, and accumulate statistics associated with the fragment and the other fragment after correlating the fragment and the other fragment. | 01-20-2011 |
| 20110056660 | FRONT-TO-BACK COOLING SYSTEM FOR MODULAR SYSTEMS WITH ORTHOGONAL MIDPLANE CONFIGURATION - A front-to-back cooling system allows cooling of an apparatus containing two orthogonal sets of modules. Each set of modules is independently cooled. A vertical set of modules is cooled with vertical air flow across the modules that enters from a front of the apparatus and exhausts from a back of the apparatus. A horizontal set of modules is cooled with horizontal front-to-back air flow. When the horizontal set of modules is at the front of the apparatus, a plenum extending exterior to the vertical set of modules allows exhausting horizontally flowing air to the rear of the apparatus. When the horizontal set of modules is at the rear of the apparatus, a plenum extending exterior to the vertical set of modules allows moving air from the front of the apparatus to a chamber holding the horizontal modules. | 03-10-2011 |
| 20110096781 | METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO A DISTRIBUTED SWITCH FABRIC - A method of sending data to a switch fabric includes assigning a destination port of an output module to a data packet based on at least one field in a first header of the data packet. A module associated with a first stage of the switch fabric is selected based on at least one field in the first header. A second header is appended to the data packet. The second header includes an identifier associated with the destination port of the output module. The data packet is sent to the module associated with the first stage. The module associated with the first stage is configured to send the data packet to a module associated with a second stage of the switch fabric based on the second header. | 04-28-2011 |
| 20110103259 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR CONFIGURING A VIRTUAL NETWORK SWITCH - In one embodiment, a method includes sending a configuration signal to a virtual network switch module within a control plane of a communications network. The configuration signal is configured to define a first network rule at the virtual network switch module. The method also includes configuring a packet forwarding module such that the packet forwarding module implements a second network rule, and receiving status information from the virtual network switch module and status information from the packet forwarding module. The status information is received via the control plane. | 05-05-2011 |
| 20110154132 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR TRACKING DATA FLOW BASED ON FLOW STATE VALUES - In one embodiment, a processor-readable medium storing code representing instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to update, at a memory location, a first flow state value associated with a data flow to a second flow state value when at least one of a packet from the data flow is received or the memory location is selected after a time period has expired. At least a portion of the packet is analyzed when the second flow state value represents a flow rate of a network data flow anomaly. | 06-23-2011 |
