System and method for centralized, intelligent proxy driver for a switch fabric
AssigneeAltera Corporation
InventorVipul Sharma
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The invention provides a proxy driver in the control plane of a router or switch providing a centralized Application Program Interface (API) between a switching application and multiple device drivers in the router chassis. Another embodiment of the invention provides a centralized method for enforcing a topology in the control plane of a router. Another embodiment of the invention provides a centralized method in the control plane for the discovery of resources, for example, as cards are added or removed from the router chassis.
Claims17
A computer readable medium storing computer software for enabling an intelligent discovery process for a router to adapt dynamically to changes in router chassis resources, wherein the software comprising codes for performing:
- a plurality of line card drivers, each of the plurality of line card drivers being uniquely associated with a line card device from a plurality of line card devices and configured to control the uniquely associated line card device;
- at least one switch fabric driver, each of the at least one switch fabric drivers being associated with a corresponding one of at least one switch fabric device and configured to control the corresponding one of the at least one switch fabric devices;
- a plurality of middleware components, each of the plurality of middleware components being included in a corresponding one of the plurality of line card drivers or the at least one switch fabric driver to enable communication with the single proxy driver, wherein each of the plurality of middleware components include a corresponding one of a plurality of local routing tables, each of the plurality of local routing tables including at least a portion of a master topology definition;
- and
- a single proxy driver in communication with the plurality of line card drivers and the at least one switch fabric driver, the single proxy driver being configured to control the plurality of line card devices and the at least one switch fabric device.
A method for controlling a router, comprising:
- storing a master topology definition in a single proxy driver of a controller card, the master topology definition related to a control plane in the router;
- storing a local routing table in each of a plurality of middleware components, the plurality of middleware components being uniquely associated with corresponding resources in the router, the local routing table including at least a portion of a master topology definition;
- receiving a request for a topology message from at least one of the plurality of resources in the router through a corresponding middleware component;
- and
- transmitting the topology message from the controller to the at least one of a plurality of resources in the router, the topology message based on the master topology definition.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.