PROTECTION SWITCHING OVER A VIRTUAL LINK AGGREGATION
Granted: September 1, 2016
Application Number:
20160255018
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch comprises one or more ports and a link management module. The link management module operates a first aggregate link group as an active aggregate link group of a protected virtual link aggregation. This protected virtual link aggregation operates as a single logical channel. An aggregate link group comprises a plurality of logically aggregated links. The first aggregate link group, which represents the logical channel,…
TRANSPARENT HIGH AVAILABILITY FOR STATEFUL SERVICES
Granted: August 25, 2016
Application Number:
20160246650
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system. The system includes a high availability module and a data transformation module. During operation, the high availability module identifies a modified object belonging to an application in a second system. A modification to the modified object is associated with a transaction identifier. The high availability module also identifies a local object corresponding to the modified object associated with a standby application…
DISTRIBUTED BIDIRECTIONAL FORWARDING DETECTION PROTOCOL (D-BFD) FOR CLUSTER OF INTERCONNECTED SWITCHES
Granted: July 7, 2016
Application Number:
20160197853
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch which comprises one or more ports adapted to receive packets. The switch is a member of a network of interconnected switches, and also comprises a path monitoring apparatus adapted to: in response to a control packet associated with a session within a predetermined time interval, set a receive indicator for the switch to an active state; and in response to absence of the control packet associated with the session within the…
POWER MANAGEMENT IN A NETWORK OF INTERCONNECTED SWITCHES
Granted: July 7, 2016
Application Number:
20160197784
A switch can reduce power consumption in a switch network by disabling under-utilized links between switches. The switch can include one or more line cards each operable to transmit and receive packets over a respective link to a remote switch. The switch can also comprise a control mechanism operable to place under-utilized links in standby mode whenever possible to conserve power. During operation, the switch can receive a standby request for placing a first link to a neighboring…
NAME SERVICES FOR VIRTUAL CLUSTER SWITCHING
Granted: June 16, 2016
Application Number:
20160173585
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch that facilitates name services in a virtual cluster switch. The switch includes a name service database indicating at least one media access control (MAC) address learned at a second switch. The switch also includes a control mechanism. During operation, the control mechanism distributes information on a locally learned MAC address to the second switch. In addition, the control mechanism receives information on a MAC address…
NETWORK FEEDBACK IN SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKS
Granted: June 16, 2016
Application Number:
20160173393
One embodiment of the present invention provides a computing system capable of providing feedback to a controller in a software-defined network. The computing system includes a policy management module and a communication module coupled to the policy management module. During operation, the policy management module recognizes a local policy indicating how a data flow is to be processed and identifies a data flow associated with the policy. The communication module constructs a request…
MULTILAYERED DISTRIBUTED ROUTER ARCHITECTURE
Granted: June 16, 2016
Application Number:
20160173371
A distributed multilayered network routing architecture comprises multiple layers including a controller layer comprising a controller, a control plane layer comprising one or more control plane subsystems, and a data plane layer comprising one or more data plane subsystems. A controller may be coupled to one or more control plane subsystems. A control plane subsystem may in turn be coupled to one or more data plane subsystems, which may include one or more software data plane subsystems…
REMOTE PORT MIRRORING
Granted: May 12, 2016
Application Number:
20160134563
A switch that facilitates remote port mirroring is described. The switch can include an encapsulation mechanism and a forwarding mechanism. The encapsulation mechanism can be configured to encapsulate a copy of a first packet in a second packet, thereby preserving header information (e.g., a VLAN identifier and/or a TRILL header) of the first packet. The forwarding mechanism can be configured to forward the first packet using header information of the first packet, and forward the second…
MULTIPLE RING IDENTIFICATION AND CONFIGURATION PROTOCOL
Granted: April 28, 2016
Application Number:
20160119220
A protocol identifies and configures rings in a network topology automatically in order to simplify and quicken the actions that need to be performed in response to addition, deletion and shuffle of network nodes in that topology. Such rings do not need to be identified and configured manually. The protocol involves two separate sequentially performed phases. In the first phase, the protocol can automatically identify all rings that are present within a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN)…
PROGRESSIVE MAC ADDRESS LEARNING
Granted: February 11, 2016
Application Number:
20160043950
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch in a network of interconnected switches. The switch includes a storage device, a hardware management apparatus, and a layer-2 management apparatus. The storage device stores a forwarding table, which includes an entry comprising a MAC address and an egress port for the MAC address. The hardware management apparatus determines whether a destination MAC address of a frame is present in a hardware table in memory of the switch. The…
LINK STATE RELAY FOR PHYSICAL LAYER EMULATION
Granted: February 11, 2016
Application Number:
20160041888
One embodiment of the present invention provides a fault-management system. During operation, the system identifies a failure at a remote location associated with a communication service. The system then determines a local port used for the communication service, and suspends the local port, thereby allowing the failure to be detected by a device coupled to the local port.
GLOBAL VLAN SERVICES
Granted: February 4, 2016
Application Number:
20160036774
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch in a network of interconnected switches. The switch includes a forwarding domain apparatus and a forwarding apparatus. The forwarding domain apparatus maintains a mapping between a first virtual local area network (VLAN) identifier and a first global VLAN identifier in a local storage device. The global VLAN identifier represents a layer-2 forwarding domain in the network and is distinct from a customer VLAN or a service-provider…
SCALABLE MAC ADDRESS VIRTUALIZATION
Granted: February 4, 2016
Application Number:
20160036703
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch includes one or more ports, a media access control (MAC) address management apparatus, and a forwarding apparatus. The MAC address management apparatus generates a routable MAC address mapped to an end device's MAC address learned from one of the one or more ports. The routable MAC address includes an endpoint identifier identifying an endpoint for the end device. The forwarding apparatus swaps the learned MAC address…
OVERLAY TUNNEL IN A FABRIC SWITCH
Granted: January 28, 2016
Application Number:
20160028626
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch includes a tunnel management module, a packet processor, and a forwarding module. The tunnel management module operates the switch as a tunnel gateway capable of terminating an overlay tunnel. During operation, the packet processor, which is coupled to the tunnel management module, identifies in a data packet a virtual Internet Protocol (IP) address associated with a virtual tunnel gateway. This virtual tunnel gateway…
CONTROLLING THE OPERATION OF SERVER COMPUTERS
Granted: December 31, 2015
Application Number:
20150381718
A plurality of server computers in a network that includes load balancing processes to enhance performance employs a non-performance related variable, such as power consumption, and modifies the load balancing processes in response to the reading of the non-performance variable. Such variables do not affect the response and performance as perceived by a browsing client but do provide other advantages with in the environment as a whole. The non-performance related variable is employed…
IP MULTICAST OVER MULTI-CHASSIS TRUNK
Granted: December 24, 2015
Application Number:
20150373070
In embodiments of the present invention, multicast traffic is simultaneously routed via all switches participating in the trunk (can be referred to as partner switches). A respective partner switch synchronizes the local multicast state information with all other partner switches. For a respective multicast group, a plurality of partner switches can be the part of the corresponding multicast distribution tree and obtain multicast traffic from uplink sources. For the multicast group, only…
METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SIGNALING REDUCTION ON RADIO ACCESS NETWORKS USING TARGETED INTELLIGENCE FOR COMMUNICATION DEVICES
Granted: November 12, 2015
Application Number:
20150327112
An intelligent system and an algorithm at a packet network to reduce the amount of signaling in the radio access network and core network is defined. The system collects all the necessary information from the signaling exchange between the radio access network and the core network and takes the subscription characteristics and policy information into consideration to choose the optimal way of reducing the amount of signaling including selecting the optimal bearers for certain types of…
AUTOMATED CONFIGURATION FOR NETWORK DEVICES
Granted: October 1, 2015
Application Number:
20150280992
Techniques for automatically configuring a network device are provided. In one embodiment, the network device can receive a Layer 2 discovery packet on an uplink port operable for connecting the network device to another network device. The network device can then learn VLAN information from the Layer 2 discovery packet and automatically configure one or more of its ports based on the VLAN information.
NETWORK DEVICE WITH NETWORK SERVICES PACKET PROCESSING BY SERVICE SOFTWARE INSTANCES
Granted: October 1, 2015
Application Number:
20150281134
Virtual machine environments are provided in the switches that form a network, with the virtual machines executing network services previously performed by dedicated appliances. The virtual machines can be executed on a single multi-core processor in combination with normal switch functions or on dedicated services processor boards. Packet processors analyze incoming packets and add a services tag containing services entries to any packets. Each switch reviews the services tag and…
NETWORK DEVICE WITH SERVICE SOFTWARE INSTANCES DEPLOYMENT INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION
Granted: October 1, 2015
Application Number:
20150281080
Virtual machine environments are provided in the switches that form a network, with the virtual machines executing network services previously performed by dedicated appliances. The virtual machines can be executed on a single multi-core processor in combination with normal switch functions or on dedicated services processor boards. Packet processors analyze incoming packets and add a services tag containing services entries to any packets. Each switch reviews the services tag and…
