Back to results
US 9,426,067 B2Granted
Integrated switch for dynamic orchestration of traffic
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsCynthia A. Gabriel, Bill Shao
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A network element within a data center comprises a switch adapted to receive a data packet, a server in communication with the switch, and a switching engine in the switch. The switching engine may be configured to modify policy header information in the data packet to direct the packet to the server. The server may be configured to modify the policy header information while the data packet is in the server to return the data packet to said switch.
Claims8
A network element, comprising:
- an ingress switch, configured to provide bi-directional routing of a packet, wherein the packet contains a special purpose table having entries that are configured such that incoming packet traffic, arriving at the ingress switch through an externally facing ingress switch port, is provided with directional information to associate an ingress switch server-facing port with at least one of a plurality of servers and the ingress switch;
- an egress switch, configured to provide bi-directional routing of the packet, wherein the packet contains the special purpose table having entries that are configured such that incoming packet traffic, arriving at the egress switch through an externally facing egress switch port, is provided with directional information to associate an egress switch server-facing port with at least one of a plurality of servers and the ingress switch;
- a plurality of servers in communication with the ingress and egress switches;
- a first switching engine, in the ingress switch, wherein the special-purpose table is within the first switching engine and is configured to provide data packets at the master switch with directional information to associate a server-facing port on the master switch with one of the plurality of servers, wherein the first switching engine further includes a packet forwarding table configured to map a unique value to one of a plurality of server-facing ports of the master switch, plurality of server-facing ports being connected to a server port;
- and
- a second switching engine in the egress switch,
- wherein the first and second switching engines are configured to modify policy header information in the special purpose table of said packet to direct packet traffic received from client systems, or from other network elements, along with the modified policy header information, to one or more of the servers, and
- wherein the plurality of servers are configured to further modify policy header information in the special purpose table of said packet to:
- return said packet with said further modified policy header information back to the ingress switch if said packet was received by the ingress switch, and
- return said packet with said further modified policy header information back to the egress switch if said packet was received by the egress switch.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.