Single virtual domain fibre channel over ethernet fabric
Granted: October 27, 2015
Patent Number:
9172590
The entire FCoE fabric is a single virtual domain, even though there may be multiple FCFs and FDFs. The virtual domain is a different Domain_ID than any of the FCFs. In certain embodiments there are multiple FCFs, of which one is selected as the master or designated FCF. The master FCF performs normal fabric configuration in conjunction with the Fiber Channel fabric. The master FCF assigns the virtual domain FC node IDs and controls development of subdomain IDs. Virtual links are…
Method and apparatus for routing between fibre channel fabrics
Granted: October 27, 2015
Patent Number:
9172556
An interfabric link between two separate Fiber Channel fabrics so that devices in one fabric can communicate with devices in another fabric without requiring the merger of the two fabrics. The interfabric switch performs a conversion or a translation of device addresses in each fabric so that they are accessible to the other fabric. In a first embodiment the external ports of the interfabric switch are configured as E_ports. A series of internal ports in each interfabric switch are…
Provisioning single or multistage networks using ethernet service instances (ESIs)
Granted: October 20, 2015
Patent Number:
9166818
Techniques for provisioning single or multistage networks using Ethernet Service Instances (ESIs). In one embodiment, an ESI is a logical entity or object that stores information that may be used to provision a network. An ESI may represent a logical entity that identifies a grouping of elements of a network or network device and associated attributes. Hierarchical relationships may be created between ESIs. The hierarchical relationships are used to perform packet-level processing…
Method and system for facilitating quality of service in edge devices in a fibre channel network
Granted: October 13, 2015
Patent Number:
9158570
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates quality of service (QoS) in a Fiber Channel (FC) host bus adaptor (HBA). In this system the bandwidth on an FC link between the HBA and the FC switch can be allocated into a plurality of logical channels, and a respective logical channel can transport data frames of variable length. Furthermore, a respective logical channel is associated with a dedicated buffer. During operation, the HBA communicates to an FC…
Overlay tunnel in a fabric switch
Granted: October 6, 2015
Patent Number:
9154416
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…
Dynamic latency-based rerouting
Granted: October 6, 2015
Patent Number:
9154394
A switch creates and dynamically updates a latency map of a network to adjust routing of flows. Further, the network is monitored to detect latency issues and trigger a dynamic adjustment of routing based on the latency map. In this manner, a flow can be routed along a route (i.e., a faster route) that provides less latency than other available routes. The latency map can be generated based on latency probe packets that are issued from and returned to the source switch. By evaluating…
Hardware hash table virtualization in multi-packet processor networking systems
Granted: September 29, 2015
Patent Number:
9148387
Techniques for virtualizing hardware hash tables in a networking system are provided. In one embodiment, the networking system can maintain a plurality of virtual hash tables corresponding to a plurality of hardware hash tables in the networking system. For each hardware hash table and its corresponding virtual hash table, the networking system can intercept operations directed to the hardware hash table and apply the intercepted operations to the virtual hash table. The networking…
Multiple ring identification and configuration protocol
Granted: September 29, 2015
Patent Number:
9148346
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)…
Automatic adjustment of logical channels in a fibre channel network
Granted: September 29, 2015
Patent Number:
9146768
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates automatic adjustment of logical channels in a Fiber Channel (FC) network. During operation, the system receives FC data frames. A respective data frame is associated with a logical channel. The bandwidth on an FC link can be allocated into a plurality of logical channels, and a respective logical channel is associated with a dedicated buffer and can transport a plurality of data flows with data frames of variable…
Federated management of intelligent service modules
Granted: September 22, 2015
Patent Number:
9143841
Intelligent services are provided in a storage network using intelligent service modules that can be cabled to a switch external to the switch chassis and yet be managed as part of the switch's logical domain. Data and management communications between the intelligent service module and the core switch are provided through a “soft-backplane” implemented using in-band communications through cabling attached between the switch and the intelligent service module rather than through…
Queue speed-up by using multiple linked lists
Granted: September 22, 2015
Patent Number:
9143459
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch that includes a transmission mechanism configured to transmit frames stored in a queue, and a queue management mechanism configured to store frames associated with the queue in a number of sub-queues which allow frames in different sub-queues to be retrieved independently, thereby facilitating parallel processing of the frames stored in the sub-queues.
Method and system for link aggregation across multiple switches
Granted: September 22, 2015
Patent Number:
9143445
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch includes a forwarding mechanism and a control mechanism. During operation, the forwarding mechanism forwards frames based on their Ethernet headers. The control mechanism operates the switch in conjunction with a separate physical switch as a single logical switch and assigns a virtual switch identifier to the logical switch, wherein the virtual switch identifier is associated with a link aggregation group.
Efficient layer-2 multicast topology construction
Granted: September 22, 2015
Patent Number:
9143336
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch includes a processor and a computer-readable storage medium. The computer-readable storage medium stores instructions which when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform a method. The method comprises determining whether the switch is a leaf switch of a multicast distribution tree of a multicast group based on a multicast topology query message from a root switch of the multicast distribution tree. If…
Multicast route cache system
Granted: September 22, 2015
Patent Number:
9143335
Techniques for organizing and grouping memory contents related to multicast routing so as to enable more efficient multicast operations. For PIM multicast routing, techniques are provided for organizing and grouping multicast routing information into data structures according to a plurality of dimensions such that multicast routing cache entries are accessible when performing a multicast routing operation by traversing the one or more data structures according to at least two of the…
In-order traffic aggregation with reduced buffer usage
Granted: September 15, 2015
Patent Number:
9137166
One embodiment provides a system that performs in-order traffic aggregation from a number of low-speed ports to a high-speed port. During operation, the system receives at a low-speed port a packet, stores it in a store-and-forward FIFO associated with the low-speed port, extracts a sequence number associated with the stored packet, and stores the extracted sequence number in a sequence-number FIFO associated with the low-speed port. The system further generates an expected sequence…
Scalable and efficient flow-aware packet distribution
Granted: September 15, 2015
Patent Number:
9137156
Techniques for efficiently distributing data packets in a network device are provided. In one embodiment, the network device can store a plurality of virtual IP addresses and a plurality of real server IP addresses in an SRAM-based table. The network device can then perform a lookup into the SRAM-based table to determine whether an incoming data packet is part of a first class of data packets destined for a virtual IP address in the plurality of virtual IP addresses, or is part of a…
Distributed health check for global server load balancing
Granted: September 8, 2015
Patent Number:
9130954
A global server load-balancing (GSLB) switch serves as a proxy to an authoritative DNS and communicates with numerous site switches that are coupled to host servers serving specific applications. The GSLB switch receives from site switches operational information regarding host servers within the site switches neighborhood. This operational information includes health check information that is remotely obtained in a distributed manner from remote metric agents at the site switches. When…
Techniques for end-to-end network bandwidth optimization using software defined networking
Granted: September 1, 2015
Patent Number:
9124506
Techniques for end-to-end network bandwidth optimization using software defined networking are provided. In one embodiment, a computer system can receive information regarding a flow to be admitted to a network, where the flow is associated with a source and a destination. The computer system can further calculate, for each path in a plurality of paths between the source and the destination, a projected utilization of the path in view of the flow. If the projected utilization of the…
Routing network traffic
Granted: August 25, 2015
Patent Number:
9118581
A traffic manager (121-124) for, and a method of, routing network traffic to a plurality of server computers (131-138). The traffic manager includes a network interface (204) and a processor (201). The processor is configured to receive network traffic comprising a request (701, 702) from a client computer (102-105) via the network interface. The processor is configured to then identify, based on attributes of the request, a server computer that is responsible for servicing the request…
Lossless connection failover for single devices
Granted: August 25, 2015
Patent Number:
9118594
The WAN optimization devices delay ACK until the ACK is actually received from the target while opening up the TCP window. When the ACK is received and forwarded, the TCP window is reduced in size. If there are mirrored WAN optimization devices, the original WAN optimization device sends the datagram across the WAN and at the same time sends the datagram to the mirroring WAN optimization device. When the mirroring WAN optimization device ACKs the mirrored datagram, the original WAN…
