Dynamic assignment of data to switch-ingress buffers
AssigneeSun Microsystems, Inc.
InventorsWladyslaw Olesinski, Hans Eberle, Nils Gura
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments of a system that includes a switch and a buffer-management technique for storing signals in the system are described. In this system, data cells are dynamically assigned from a host buffer to at least a subset of switch-ingress buffers in the switch based at least in part on the occupancy of the switch-ingress buffers. This buffer-management technique may reduce the number of switch-ingress buffers relative to the number of input and output ports to the switch, which in turn may overcome the limitations posed by the amount of memory available on chips, thereby facilitating large switches.
Claims20
A system, comprising:
- input nodes to receive data cells;
- host buffers, wherein a given host buffer is coupled to a given input node;
- output nodes to output the data cells;
- and
- a switch that includes:
- switch-ingress buffers at least selectively coupled to the host buffers;
- and
- a switching fabric to selectively couple one or more of the switch-ingress buffers to one or more of the output nodes, wherein data cells are dynamically assigned from the given host buffer to a given switch-ingress buffer based at least in part on occupancy of the switch-ingress buffers.
A computer system, comprising:
- input nodes to receive data cells;
- host buffers, wherein a given host buffer is coupled to a given input node;
- output nodes to output the data cells;
- and
- a switch that includes:
- switch-ingress buffers at least selectively coupled to the host buffers;
- and
- a switching fabric to selectively couple one or more of the switch-ingress buffers to one or more of the output nodes, wherein data cells are dynamically assigned from the given host buffer to a given switch-ingress buffer based at least in part on occupancy of the switch-ingress buffers.
A method for selectively coupling data cells from one or more input nodes to one or more output nodes, comprising:
- receiving data cells on the input nodes;
- storing the data cells in host buffers, wherein a given host buffer is coupled to a given input node;
- dynamically assigning the data cells from the host buffers to switch-ingress buffers, wherein the data cells are dynamically assigned from the given host buffer to a given switch-ingress buffer based at least in part on occupancy of the switch-ingress buffers;
- storing the data cells in the switch-ingress buffers;
- and
- selectively coupling the data cells from the switch-ingress buffers to corresponding output nodes using a switching fabric.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.