High-speed stats gathering in a network switch

A network switch, comprising:

• a data port for communicating with a data network;
• a statistics counter connected to said data port for monitoring operational parameters associated with the data port, said statistics counter including statistics registers therein;
• a statistics gathering circuit connected to said statistics counter for reading the statistics registers, and for directly transmitting data from the statistics registers to a remote system memory;
• an active counter register which is configured to selectively enable statistics gathering from selected ones of the statistics registers and;
• a configuration register for appropriate port configurations the configuration register comprising at least one field associated with stacking.

A network switch, comprising:

• a data port for communicating with a data network;
• a statistics counter connected to said data port for monitoring operational parameters associated with the data port, said statistics counter including statistics registers therein;
• a statistics gathering circuit connected to said statistics counter for reading the statistics registers, and for directly transmitting data from the statistics registers to a remote system memory;
• a plurality of data ports and a plurality of statistics counters therein, and wherein each data port of said plurality of data ports has at least one individual statistics counter associated therewith;
• an active counter register which is configured to selectively enable statistics gathering by said statistics gathering circuit from selected ones of the plurality of statistics counters and
• a configuration register for appropriate port configuration, the configuration register comprising at least one field associated with stacking.

A method of monitoring port activity in a network switch, said method comprising the steps of:

• storing port activity data in a statistics register on the network switch;
• reading the port activity data with a statistics gathering unit;
• transmitting the port activity data directly to a remote system memory, thereby reconstructing the statistics register in the remote system memory;
• accessing the remote system memory with a remote CPU to read the reconstructed statistics register;
• and
• providing appropriate port configuration based on information in a configuration register comprising at least one field associated with stacking.

A method of monitoring port activity in a network switch, said method comprising the steps of:

• storing port activity data in a plurality of statistics registers on the network switch;
• reading the port activity data with a statistics gathering unit;
• transmitting the port activity data to a remote system memory to thereby reconstruct the plurality of statistics registers in the remote system memory;
• accessing the remote system memory with a remote CPU to read the reconstructed statistics registers, wherein the remote CPU accesses the remote system memory to read selected ones of the plurality of statistics registers;
• and
• providing appropriate port configuration based on information in a configuration register comprising at least one field associated with stacking.

A network switch for processing packets, said network switch comprising:

• a data port for transmitting and receiving packets over a data network;
• a tag insertion unit for inserting a stack-specific tag into a packet;
• a processing unit for processing the packet in a stack of network switches in accordance with tag information in the stack-specific tag;
• a removing unit for removing the stack-specific tag from the packet when the packet is being switched to a destination port;
• a statistics counter connected to said data port for monitoring operational parameters associated with the data port, said statistics counter including statistics registers therein;
• and
• a statistics gathering circuit connected to said statistics counter for reading the statistics registers, and for directly transmitting data from the statistics registers to a remote system memory.

A method of handling packets in a network switch, said method comprising the steps of:

• inserting a stack-specific tag into an incoming packet;
• processing the incoming packet in a stack of network switches in accordance with tag information in the stack-specific tag;
• storing port activity data relating to a data port receiving the incoming packet, said port activity data being stored in a statistics register on the network switch;
• reading the port activity data with a statistics gathering unit;
• transmitting the port activity data directly to a remote system memory, thereby reconstructing the statistics register in the remote system memory;
• accessing the remote system memory with a remote CPU to read the reconstructed statistics register.