US 10,219,050 B2 · Virtual line cards in a disaggregated optical transport network switching system

Abstract

Methods and systems of a disaggregated optical transport network (OTN) switching system that include using plug-in universal (PIU) modules for OTN to Ethernet transceiving and an Ethernet fabric as a switching core are disclosed. An OTN over Ethernet module in each of the PIU modules may enable various OTN functionality to be realized using the Ethernet fabric which may include multiple Ethernet switches. A virtual line card may include a logical aggregation of a kth Ethernet switch sub-port of each of the corresponding Ethernet switch ports of each of the Ethernet switches. A virtual switch fabric may include multiple virtual line cards for the OTN switching system. Each of the virtual line cards may be associated with a virtual address that may correspond to a respective PIU module. The virtual address may include a media access control address associated with the respective PIU module.

Claims18

Dependent claims

An optical transport networking switching system comprising:

an Ethernet fabric including a number M of Ethernet switches, each of the M Ethernet switches having a number N of Ethernet switch ports, each of the N Ethernet switch ports having a number P of Ethernet switch sub-ports, wherein a variable i having a value ranging from 1 to M denotes the ith Ethernet switch corresponding to one of the M Ethernet switches, a variable j having a value ranging from 1 to N denotes the jth Ethernet switch port corresponding to one of the N Ethernet switch ports, and a variable k having a value ranging from 1 to P denotes the kth Ethernet switch sub-port corresponding to one of the P Ethernet switch sub-ports, and wherein N, M, and Pare greater than one;
and
a plug-in universal (PIU) module having M PIU ports, wherein the ith PIU port of the M PIU ports corresponds to the ith Ethernet switch,
wherein the optical transport networking switching system switches optical data units through the Ethernet fabric using the PIU modules and a virtual switch fabric associated with the PIU modules.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Virtual line cards in a disaggregated optical transport network switching system

Life of this patent

Virtual line cards in a disaggregated optical transport network switching system

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims18