US 7,583,664 B2Granted

Techniques for transmitting and receiving traffic over advanced switching compatible switch fabrics

OwnerMichael Ho, Miriam Qunell +7inventors

InventorsMichael Ho, Miriam Qunell, Jason Garratt, Kevin Citterelle, Jeff Fedders, Michael Kauschke, Matthew Adiletta, Ernest Kaempfer, Douglas Carrigan

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Abstract

Techniques for transmitting SONET/SDH traffic over an Advanced Switching compatible switch fabric. In one implementation, SONET/SDH traffic may be aggregated and encapsulated into Advanced Switching compatible packets. In one implementation, the contents of the Advanced Switching compatible packets may be configurable and directions on how to unpack the Advanced Switching compatible packets may be transmitted to end point nodes. In one implementation, SONET/SDH pointer justification generation may be divided between a source node which transmits SONET/SDH traffic to the switch fabric and an end point node which receives SONET/SDH traffic from the switch fabric.

Claims41

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

providing a plurality of Advanced Switching compliant packets to an Advanced Switching compatible switch fabric for transmission to at least one endpoint, wherein each of the plurality of Advanced Switching compliant packets includes a header and a payload portion and wherein at least one of the plurality of Advanced Switching compliant packets includes one of control information, protection information, portions of a SONET frame, data packets and frames, or ingress synchronous residual time stamps,
wherein the providing includes:
aggregating SONET tributaries, and
encapsulating the aggregated SONET tributaries into a payload of an Advanced Switching compliant packet, and
wherein the aggregating comprises:
aggregating high order tributaries having the same destination and having the same packet rate into a payload of an Advanced Switching compliant packet, and
aggregating low order tributaries having the same destination and having the same packet rate into a payload of an Advanced Switching compliant packet.

4 more elements

An apparatus comprising:

a SONET frame-to-packet converter to receive a plurality of SONET frames, wherein each of the SONET frames includes header and payload portions and wherein the SONET frame-to-packet converter comprises:
a segmentation and aggregation device to:
segment high and low order SONET tributaries from the payload portions into segments based on the destination and the packet rate of the high and low order tributaries, and
form Advanced Switching compliant packets, wherein each Advanced Switching compliant packet includes header and payload portions and wherein the payload portion includes at least one of high or low order segments;
and
a packet scheduler to at least receive packets substantially in an Advanced Switching compatible format and provide a plurality of packets in an Advanced Switching compatible format for transmission to an Advanced Switching compatible switching fabric, wherein at least one of the provided plurality of packets includes at least one of control information, protection information, portions of a SONET frame, data packets and frames, or ingress synchronous residual time stamps.

3 more elements

A method comprising:

receiving a plurality of Advanced Switching compatible packets from an Advanced Switching compatible switch fabric, wherein at least one of the plurality of Advanced Switching compatible packets includes at least one of control information, protection information, portions of a SONET frame, data packets and frames, or ingress synchronous residual time stamps;
receiving at least one man on how to unpack packets, wherein the at least one map identifies at least high or low order segment ordering and high or low order type of traffic within an Advanced Switching compatible packet;
aggregating contents of the packet including portions of a SONET frame;
and wherein the aggregating comprises:
aggregating high order tributaries having the same destination and having the same packet rate into a payload of an Advanced Switching compliant packet, and aggregating low order tributaries having the same destination and having the same packet rate into a payload of an Advanced Switching compliant packet;
forming a portion of a SONET frame from contents of the packet including portions of a SONET frame.

3 more elements

An apparatus comprising:

a packet-to-frame converter to receive a plurality of Advanced Switching compatible packets, wherein at least one of the plurality of Advanced Switching compatible packets includes at least one of control information, protection information, portions of a SONET frame, data packets and frames, or ingress synchronous residual time stamps, the packet-to-frame converter including:
a packet classifier to transfer Advanced Switching compatible packets for processing by one of a plurality of processing devices;
and
a de-segmentation and de-aggregation device to receive an Advanced Switching compatible packet including portions of a SONET frame and to store contents of the Advanced Switching compatible packet including portions of a SONET frame and to form a portion of a SONET frame from contents of the Advanced Switching compatible packet including portions of a SONET frame wherein the Advanced Switching compatible packet including portions of a SONET frame comprises:
segments including high order tributaries;
preambles for the segments including high order tributaries;
wherein the Advanced Switching compatible packet including portions of a SONET frame comprises:
segments including low order tributaries;
preambles for the segments including low order tributaries.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.