Flexible multicasting in high-capacity switches
AssigneeAT&T Corp.
InventorAleksandra Smiljanic
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In a communication system using multicasting, multicast packets are forwarded through a switch by destination ports after these ports receive the packets. A source node sends the multicast packet to a subset of nodes within the multicast group, which in turn, forward the multicast packet to other subsets of packets within the multicast group that have yet to receive the information. This is continued until all ports within the multicast group have received the information.
Claims6
A method of bandwidth reservations through a switch by employing counters associated with input-output queues, comprising:
- loading a plurality of counters at a beginning of each frame of a length F to a negotiated number of credits, wherein said credit are allocated in the switch based on a maximal matching scheduling, to input-output pairs (i,j), if for 1≦i, j≦N,
- Ti+Ei+Rj≦F+1
- where Ti is a number of credits allocated to input i within a frame, Ei is a number of credits allocated to input i for packet forwarding within a frame, Rj is a number of credits allocated to output j, F is a frame length, and N is a number of ports;
- facilitating a competition for service by a plurality of queues with positive counters;
- selecting a competing queue from said plurality of queues;
- and
- decrementing by one a counter of said plurality of counters associated with the competing queue that is selected.
A method of bandwidth reservations through a switch by employing counters associated with input-output queues, comprising:
- loading a plurality of counters at a beginning of each frame of a length F to a negotiated number of credits, wherein the switch is fully utilized, and said credits are allocated in the switch, to input-output pairs (i,j), if 1≦i, j≦N,
- Ti+Ei≦F+1
- where Ti is a number of credits allocated to input i within a frame, Ei is a number of credits allocated to input i for packet forwarding within a frame, F is a frame length, and N is a number of ports;
- facilitating a competition for service by a plurality of queues with positive counters;
- selecting a competing queue from said plurality of queues;
- and
- decrementing by one a counter of said plurality of counters associated with the competing queue that is selected.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.