Method for Expanding a Single Chassis Network or Computing Platform Using Soft Interconnects
AssigneeFuturewei Technologies, Inc.
InventorsYuancheng Christopher Pan, Tian Yu, Chongyang Wang, Chunxing Huang, Zhenhua Xu
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Abstract
A system and method for expanding a chassis network using soft interconnects, including a hybrid chassis comprising a first fabric card comprising a first switching fabric, a second fabric card comprising a second switching fabric, a first set of line cards coupled to the first switching fabric via a first set of hard connections, and coupled to an interface associated with the second switching fabric via a soft connection, and a second set of line cards coupled to the second fabric card.
Claims20
A line card comprising:
- a first set of ports communicatively coupled to a first switching fabric via a hard connection, wherein the first switching fabric is capable of forwarding data to any one of a plurality of proximately located line cards without forwarding the data through any intermediate switching fabrics;
- and
- a second set of ports communicatively coupled to a second switching fabric via a soft connection, wherein the second switching fabric is capable of forwarding data to any one of a plurality of remotely located line cards without forwarding the data through any intermediate switching fabrics.
A method for operating a first line card, the method comprising:
- receiving a plurality of packets over an ingress interface of the first line card;
- sorting the plurality of packets to distinguish a first set of the plurality of packets from a second set of the plurality of packets, the first set of packets being destined for a proximately located line card and the second set of packets being destined for a remotely located line card;
- forwarding the first set of packets to a first switching fabric via a first hard connection, the first switching fabric and the first hard connection being components of a proximately located fabric card;
- and
- forwarding the second set of packets to an interface associated with a second switching fabric via a soft connection, the second switching fabric a component of a remotely located fabric card.
A hybrid chassis comprising:
- a first fabric card comprising a first switching fabric;
- a second fabric card comprising a second switching fabric;
- a first set of line cards coupled to the first switching fabric via a first set of hard connections, and coupled to an interface associated with the second switching fabric via a soft connection;
- and
- a second set of line cards coupled to the second fabric card.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.