Systems and methods for implementing virtual switch planes in a physical switch fabric
AssigneeJuniper Networks, Inc.
InventorsPhilippe Lacroute, Matthew A. Tucker, John D. Weisbloom, Anjan Venkatramani, Jayabharat Boddu, Stefan Dyckerhoff
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A switching device includes multiple interfaces and a switch fabric. The switch fabric includes switch integrated circuits arranged in a number of stages. Multiple virtual switch planes may be implemented in the switch fabric. Data traffic received at the interfaces is selectively assigned to different ones of the virtual switch planes.
Claims10
A method of implementing multiple virtual switch planes in a single physical switch plane, the single physical switch plane comprising a switch fabric and a plurality of queues arranged in at least a three-stage configuration, the method comprising:
- segmenting the single physical switch plane into the multiple virtual switch planes;
- segregating the queues of each stage into groups such that each group of the queues is associated with a different one of the multiple virtual switch planes, wherein a set of input ports and output ports are associated with each of the queues;
- receiving data units at the single physical switch plane;
- assigning each of the data units to one of the multiple virtual switch planes;
- and
- conveying, through different ones of the virtual switch planes, the assigned units from a first queue in a first stage and associated with one of the groups of the queues to a second queue in a next stage and associated with the one group using a subset of the set of input ports and the output ports associated with the first and second queues.
A network device, comprising:
- a physical switch plane comprising a switch fabric queues arranged in at least a three-stage configuration and having a set of input ports and output ports, the physical switch plane being segmented into a plurality of virtual switch planes, and the queues being segregated into groups such that each group is associated with a different virtual switch plane of the plurality of virtual switch planes and handles only data units assigned to the different virtual switch plane, wherein the assigned data units are sent from a first queue in a first one of the stages of a first group of the queues to a second queue of an intermediary stage of the first group, and the data units are sent from the second queue to a third queue of a next stage of the first group using a subset of the set of input ports and the output ports which is associated with the first group of the queues;
- and
- interface cards coupled to the physical switch plane, the interface cards configured to receive data units and transmit the data units through the physical switch plane.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.