Back to results
US 2014/0211802 A1Published application
Trunking in a matrix
AssigneeConversant Intellectual Property Management Inc.
InventorRichard M. WYATT
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A multistage switch includes a matrix of coupled switch devices. A logical link comprising a plurality of physical links couples a destination through the plurality of physical links to a plurality of ports in the multistage switch. Each switch device performs trunk aware forwarding to reduce the forwarding of received frames through the matrix of coupled switch devices to the destination in order to reduce unnecessary traffic in the multistage switch.
Claims25
An apparatus, comprising:
- a plurality of external ports;
- a plurality of devices organized into a plurality rows, each of the rows including a first fan-in/fan-out device, a second fan-in/fan-out device, and one or more switch devices, wherein:
- each device in a row is associated with a different respective stage of a plurality of stages;
- certain of the devices in a row are connected to each other through internal output ports;
- the first and second fan-in/fan-out devices are coupled to a number of the plurality of external ports and are configured to receive a data frame, the data frame being associated with a logical link implemented in the apparatus;
- and
- the data frame is communicated on physical paths between one or more of the plurality of devices based on a forward vector determined based on:
- a first vector component determined based at least in part on header information of the received data frame;
- a second vector component determined based at least in part on a destination address of the received data frame;
- and
- a third vector component determined based at least in part on the external port via which the data frame was received.
8 more elements
A network, comprising:
- a multistage switch including:
- i) a plurality of external ports, a first number of the plurality of external ports configured to be coupled to a source of frames;
- ii) a plurality of devices organized into a plurality rows, each of the rows including a first fan-in/fan-out device, a second fan-in/fan-out device, and one or more switch devices, wherein:
- each device in a row is associated with a different respective stage of a plurality of stages;
- certain of the devices in a row are connected to each other through internal output ports;
- the first and second fan-in/fan-out devices are coupled to a number of the plurality of external ports and are configured to receive data frames, each of the data frames being associated with a logical link implemented in the apparatus;
- and
- the data frames are communicated on physical paths between one or more of the plurality of devices based on a forward vector determined based on:
- a first vector component determined based at least in part on header information of the received data frame;
- a second vector component determined based at least in part on a destination address of the received data frame;
- and
- a third vector component determined based at least in part on the external port via which the data frame was received;
- and
- a host coupled to a second number of the plurality of external ports of the multistage switch, the host being either a computer, another multistage switch or a router.
11 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.