| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20090092043 | Providing an abstraction layer in a cluster switch that includes plural switches - In a communications network, a cluster switch is provided, where the cluster switch has plural individual switches. An abstraction layer is provided in the cluster switch, such that an interface having a set of ports is provided to upper layer logic in the cluster switch. The set of ports includes a collection of ports of the individual switches. Control traffic and data traffic are communicated over virtual tunnels between individual switches of the cluster switch, where each virtual tunnel has an active channel and at least one standby channel. | 04-09-2009 |
| 20100169718 | Metro Ethernet Connectivity Fault Management Acceleration - A network element disposed at an edge of a connectivity fault management (CFM) domain includes a switch fabric, a central processor (CP) card, and a line card in communication with the CP card through the switch fabric. The line card includes an Ethernet interface for transmitting and receiving Ethernet CFM frames over a network and circuitry configured to generate new continuity check messages (CCMs) periodically, to process CCMs received on each connection supported by the line card, and to detect a loss of continuity for any of the connections supported by the line card. The line card maintains a list of supported connections. A generate timer and an age counter are associated with each connection in the list. The line card generates a CCM for a given connection when the generate timer expires and detects a loss of continuity for the given connection when its age counter exceeds a threshold. | 07-01-2010 |
| 20100290335 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR LOCALLY IMPLEMENTING PORT SELECTION VIA SYNCHRONIZED PORT STATE DATABASES MAINTAINED BY THE FORWARDING PLANE OF A NETWORK ELEMENT - A method, apparatus and computer program product for implementing port selection via synchronized port state databases maintained by the forwarding plane of a network element is presented. Each Forwarding Data Unit (FDU) within the forwarding plane of the network element maintains a respective port state database, each port state database containing a synchronized view of the port state for all ports within the network element. A port selection process is performed by each port state database upon request of its associated FDU, to identify an available port in an UP state associated with a Multi-Link Trunk (MLT) to enable fast reroute between ports associated with the MLT in the event of port failure. The process returns an identified port to the FDU for use by the FDU to forward the packet. | 11-18-2010 |
| 20100290458 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING FAST REROUTE OF A PACKET THAT MAY BE FORWARDED ON ONE OF A PLURALITY OF EQUAL COST MULTIPATH ROUTES THROUGH A NETWORK - A method, apparatus and computer program product for providing fast reroute of a packet that may be forwarded on one of a plurality of Equal Cost Multi Path (ECMP) routes through a network is presented. A packet is received by a Forwarding Data Unit (FDU) in a data plane of a network element. The unicast packet is routed at L3, and ECMP is enabled for a next hop for the unicast packet. An ECMP route is selected for forwarding the packet to a destination port. A lookup is performed in a port state table maintained by the FDU to determine an available local port for said ECMP route that is in an UP state for the destination, and if no local port is UP, then a lookup is performed in the port state table to determine an available remote port that is in an UP state for the selected ECMP route. | 11-18-2010 |
| 20100290464 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING FAST REROUTE OF A MULTICAST PACKET WITHIN A NETWORK ELEMENT TO AN AVAILABLE PORT ASSOCIATED WITH A MULTI-LINK TRUNK - A method, apparatus and computer program product for providing a fast re-route of a multicast packet within a network element to an available port associated with a multi-link trunk is presented. A packet is received by a Forwarding Data Unit (FDU) in a data plane of a network element and a determination made that the packet is a multicast packet. The packet is forwarded to all egress FDUs having at least one port associated with at least one receiver of the multicast packet. A lookup is performed by each egress FDU in a synchronized local port state database to find a port for each receiver that is in an UP state. The packet is forwarded out the port to a receiver when the port is in the UP state and dropped when the port is in the DOWN state. | 11-18-2010 |
| 20100290469 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING FAST REROUTE OF A UNICAST PACKET WITHIN A NETWORK ELEMENT TO AN AVAILABLE PORT ASSOCIATED WITH A MULTI-LINK TRUNK - A method, apparatus and computer program product for providing fast reroute of a packet is presented. A unicast packet is received by an FDU in a data plane of a network element and a destination is determined for the packet. A lookup is performed in a port state table maintained by the FDU to determine an available local port that is in an UP state for the destination, and if no local port is UP, then a lookup is performed in the port state table to determine an available remote port that is in an UP state for the destination. If a port in the UP state cannot be determined for the unicast packet, then the packet is dropped. | 11-18-2010 |
| 20100293200 | Method and apparatus for maintaining port state tables in a forwarding plane of a network element - A method, apparatus and computer program product for maintaining port state tables in a forwarding plane of a network element are presented. The state of a first set of ports associated with a first Forwarding Data Unit (FDU) are periodically determined, the first FDU being one of a plurality of FDUs. The determined state is used to update a first port state table of the port state database associated with the first FDU. The determined state is transmitted to each other FDUs on the network element to enable each of the other FDUs to store the state of the first set of ports in a port state database local to each of the other FDUs. The port state database is used by the forwarding plane to perform fast reroute of packets. | 11-18-2010 |
| 20110317699 | METHOD FOR MEDIA ACCESS CONTROL ADDRESS LEARNING AND LEARNING RATE SUPPRESSION - A method, apparatus and computer program product for Media Access Control (MAC) address learning and learning rate suppression are presented. A Forwarding Data Unit (FDU) maintains two cache tables, each of the cache tables used for harvesting MAC addresses. The FDU uses the cache tables in an alternating manner, wherein when one of the cache tables is used for harvesting MAC addresses the other one of the cache tables has its contents bundled into a packet for forwarding to a control plane of the FDU. | 12-29-2011 |
| 20110317700 | METHOD FOR REAL-TIME SYNCHRONIZATION OF ARP RECORD IN RSMLT CLUSTER - Embodiments herein include systems and methods for providing a mechanism for efficient data synchronization of ARP records between two peer nodes of an SMLT system. Such techniques include modifying control information of ARP packets transmitted between peer nodes of the SMLT system to indicate originating SMLT ports. Techniques also include disabling MAC synchronization control messaging across the IST link. These techniques enable real-time synchronization ARP records for MAC learning without needing dedicated control messaging over the IST, thereby providing nodal and SMLT port failover and recovery. | 12-29-2011 |
| 20110317713 | Control Plane Packet Processing and Latency Control - A switch resource receives control plane packets and data packets. The control plane packets indicate how to configure the network in which the switch resource resides. The switch resource includes a classifier. The classifier classifies the control plane packets based on priority and stores the control plane packets into different packet priority queues. The switch resource also includes a flow controller. The forwarding manager selectively forwards the control plane packets stored in the control plane packet priority queues to a control plane packet processing environment depending on a completion status of processing previously forwarded control plane packets by a packet processing thread. The control plane packet processing environment includes a monitor resource that generates one or more interrupts to an operating system to ensure further forwarding of the packets downstream to the packet processing thread for timely processing. | 12-29-2011 |
| 20110320680 | Method and Apparatus for Efficient Memory Bank Utilization in Multi-Threaded Packet Processors - A method and apparatus for efficient memory bank utilization in multi-threaded packet processors is presented. A plurality of memory access requests, are received and are buffered by a plurality of memory First In First Out (FIFO) buffers, each of the memory FIFO buffers in communication with a memory controller. The memory access requests are distributed evenly across said memory banks by way of the memory controller. This reduces and/or eliminates memory latency which can occur when sequential memory operations are performed on the same memory bank. | 12-29-2011 |
| 20110320693 | Method For Paramaterized Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)/Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) Memory-Based Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) - A method and apparatus for providing TCAM functionality in a custom integrated circuit (IC) is presented. An incoming key is broken into a predefined number of sub-keys. Each sub-key is sued to address a Random Access Memory (RAM), one RAM for each sub-key. An output of the RAM is collected for each sub-key, each output comprising a Partial Match Vector (PMV). The PMVs are bitwise ANDed to obtain a value which is provided to a priority encoder to obtain an index. The index is used to access a result RAM to return a result value for the key. | 12-29-2011 |
| 20110320705 | METHOD FOR TCAM LOOKUP IN MULTI-THREADED PACKET PROCESSORS - A method, apparatus and computer program product for performing TCAM lookups in multi-threaded packet processors is presented. A Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) key is constructed for a packet and a Packet Reference Number (PRN) is generated. The TCAM key and the packet are tagged with the PRN. The TCAM key and the PRN are sent to a TCAM and in parallel the packet and the PRN are sent to a packet processing thread. The PRN is used to read the TCAM result when it is ready. | 12-29-2011 |
| 20110320788 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR BRANCH REDUCTION IN A MULTITHREADED PACKET PROCESSOR - A method and apparatus for branch reduction in a multithreaded packet processor is presented. An instruction is executed which includes testing of a branch flag. The branch flag references a configuration bit vector wherein each bit in the configuration bit vector corresponds to a respective feature. When said branch flag returns a first result processing is continues at an instruction located at a first location relative to a Program Counter (PC) and when the branch flag returns a second result processing is continued at a second location relative to said PC. | 12-29-2011 |
