US 7,535,895 B2 · Selectively switching data between link interfaces and processing engines in a network switch

Abstract

Technology is disclosed for directing data through a network switch. One version of a network switch employs a mid-plane architecture that allows data to be directed between any link interface and any processing engine. Each time slot of data from an ingress link interface can be separately directed to any ingress processing engine. Each time slot of data from an egress processing engine can be separately directed to any egress link interface that supports the lower level protocol for the data. In one version of the switch, each processing engine in the network switch has the ability to service all of the protocols from the layers of the OSI model that are supported by the switch and not handled on the link interfaces. This allows the switch to allocate processing engine resources, regardless of the protocols employed in the data passing through the switch.

Claims38

Dependent claims

A network switch comprising:

a plurality of link interfaces;
a plurality of processing engines;
a switch fabric coupled to said plurality of processing engines;
and
a switch coupling said plurality of link interfaces to said plurality of processing engines, wherein said switch is configured to:
map data from at least one time slot in a set of time slots from a link interface in said plurality of link interfaces to at least one outgoing set of time slots;
and
forward each outgoing set of time slots in said at least one outgoing set of time slots to a processing engine in said plurality of processing engines,
wherein said switch is configured to map data in response to mapping information maintained in said network switch, wherein said mapping information identifies a time slot in an outgoing set of time slots in said at least one outgoing set of time slots for each time slot in said set of time slots;
and
said network switch is configured to modify said mapping information in response to a failure of at least one link interface in said plurality of link interfaces.

8 more elements

A network switch comprising:

a plurality of link interfaces;
a plurality of processing engines;
a switch fabric coupled to said plurality of processing engines;
and
a switch coupling said plurality of link interfaces to said plurality of processing engines, wherein said switch is configured to:
map data from a first link interface in said plurality of link interfaces to multiple processing engines in said plurality of processing engines;
and
map data from multiple link interfaces in said plurality of link interfaces to a first processing engine in said plurality of processing engines;
wherein said switch is configured to map data from a first link interface and map data from multiple link interfaces in response to mapping information maintained in said network switch;
and
wherein at least one processing engine in said plurality of processing engines receives data to be processed by said at least one processing engine according to a first protocol within a layer and data to be processed by said at least one processing engine according to a second protocol within said layer and said first protocol is different than said second protocol;
and
wherein:
said plurality of link interfaces includes at least twice as many link interfaces as a number of processing engines included in said plurality of processing engines;
each link interface in said set of link interfaces has redundancy;
each processing engine in said set of processing engines has redundancy;
and
no processing engine in said set of processing engines is idle.

15 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Selectively switching data between link interfaces and processing engines in a network switch

Life of this patent

Selectively switching data between link interfaces and processing engines in a network switch

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims38