Name services for virtual cluster switching
Granted: December 19, 2017
Patent Number:
9848040
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…
Multiple ring identification and configuration protocol
Granted: November 14, 2017
Patent Number:
9819572
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)…
System and method for network configuration
Granted: October 31, 2017
Patent Number:
9807031
One embodiment of the present invention provides a network device that facilitates configuration orchestration. During operation, the system interprets a configuration command and stores a data structure representing a set of business logic. The business logic can be triggered by the configuration command, a local condition, or both. Furthermore, the system configures the switch according to an outcome of the business logic.
Multicast traffic load balancing over virtual link aggregation
Granted: October 31, 2017
Patent Number:
9807017
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch comprises one or more ports, a link management module and a load balancing module. The link management module operates a port of the one or more ports of the switch in conjunction with a remote switch to form a virtual link aggregation. The load balancing module generates an index of a weight distribution vector based on address information of a multicast group associated with the virtual link aggregation. A slot of…
Progressive MAC address learning
Granted: October 31, 2017
Patent Number:
9807007
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…
Multi-fabric manager
Granted: October 31, 2017
Patent Number:
9807005
One embodiment of the present invention provides a computing system. The computing system includes processing circuitry, one or more ports, a persistent storage module, and a management module. The persistent storage module stores a plurality of persistent storage instances associated with a plurality of switch groups. A respective persistent storage instance stores configuration information associated with a switch group in a data structure. The management module identifies at least two…
Transparent interconnection of Ethernet fabric switches
Granted: October 31, 2017
Patent Number:
9806949
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch includes a fabric switch module and a border module. The fabric switch module maintains a membership in a first fabric switch. The fabric switch includes a plurality of switches and operates as a single logical switch. The border module determines that the egress switch identifier in a first encapsulation header of a first packet is associated with a switch outside of the fabric switch. The first packet is forwardable…
Flooding packets on a per-virtual-network basis
Granted: October 31, 2017
Patent Number:
9806906
Methods and techniques for flooding packets on a per-virtual-network basis are described. Some embodiments provide a method (e.g., a switch) which determines an internal virtual network identifier based on one or more fields in a packet's header. Next, the method performs a forwarding lookup operation based on the internal virtual network identifier. If the forwarding lookup operation succeeds, the method can process and forward the packet accordingly. However, if the forwarding lookup…
Network extension groups of global VLANs in a fabric switch
Granted: October 24, 2017
Patent Number:
9800471
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch in a network of interconnected switches. The switch includes a network extension module, which maintains a mapping between a first virtual local area network (VLAN) identifier and a first global VLAN identifier of a network extension group. The network extension group is represented by a range of global VLAN identifiers for a tenant. A global VLAN identifier is persistent in a respective switch of the network and represents a…
Fibre channel virtual host bus adapter
Granted: October 10, 2017
Patent Number:
9787524
Methods and devices to allow multiple operating system images to simultaneously access a Fiber Channel fabric through a common host bus adapter port are described. For each requesting operating system image, a fabric switch maintains a unique port identifier value and a unique fabric channel address so that each operating system image may be uniquely identified across the fabric.
Virtual machine and application movement over local area networks and a wide area network
Granted: October 3, 2017
Patent Number:
9781052
Long distance cloud migration (LDCM) to overcome the limitations faced by the cloud migration techniques over long distance, high speed WAN infrastructures. LDCM overcomes the negative effects of existing TCP/IP mechanisms on the efficient use of available bandwidth. LDCM also acts as an acceleration engine to optimize various hypervisor, storage and security applications.
MAC address synchronization in a fabric switch
Granted: September 26, 2017
Patent Number:
9774543
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system for facilitating synchronization of MAC addresses in a fabric switch. During operation, the system divides a number of media access control (MAC) addresses associated with devices coupled to an interface of the switch. The system then computes a checksum for a respective chunk of MAC addresses. In addition, the system broadcasts MAC address information of the chunk to facilitate MAC address synchronization in a fabric switch of…
Integrated heterogeneous software-defined network
Granted: September 19, 2017
Patent Number:
9769061
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch in a software-defined network. The switch includes at least one port, a flow management module, and forwarding circuitry. The port is capable of receiving a frame belonging to a software-defined data flow and a frame belonging to a regular data flow. The flow management module logically partitions the port for the frame belonging to the software-defined data flow from the frame belonging to the regular data flow. The forwarding…
Advanced link tracking for virtual cluster switching
Granted: September 19, 2017
Patent Number:
9769016
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch system. The switch includes a port that couples to a server hosting a number of virtual machines. The switch also includes a link tracking module. During operation, the link tracking module determines that reachability to at least one end host coupled to a virtual cluster switch of which the switch is a member is disrupted. The link tracking module then determines that at least one virtual machine coupled to the port is affected…
Method and system for signaling saving on radio access networks using early throttling mechanism for communication devices
Granted: September 5, 2017
Patent Number:
9756524
An intelligent system and a method in a packet network to utilize the radio network resource and the core network resource in an optimized way so that more high priority, critical devices are granted access to the network while throttling the low priority, non-critical devices with the same given resource. The system collects all the necessary information from the signaling exchange between the radio access network and the core network and takes the device subscription characteristics…
Intelligent load balancer selection in a multi-load balancer environment
Granted: August 29, 2017
Patent Number:
9749401
Techniques for performing intelligent load balancer selection in a multi-load balancer environment are provided. In one embodiment, a computer system can generate a user interface for deploying a virtual IP address (VIP) on a load balancer in a network environment, where the network environment includes a plurality of load balancers, and where the user interface presents a plurality of criteria for selecting one of the plurality of load balancers. The computer system can further receive,…
Method and system for optimized load balancing across distributed data plane processing entities for mobile core network
Granted: August 29, 2017
Patent Number:
9749286
A system and an algorithm in a mobile core network to distribute the data load across multiple data processing entities. The system is seen as having one data plane entity to the external entities like routers; hence the system can scale without needing to update the external nodes. In general when a data plane processing entity is added or removed, a new distribution rule is provided to the remaining data plane processing entities. Only after some number of sessions have been migrated…
Increased network scalability by router aware switches
Granted: August 29, 2017
Patent Number:
9749236
Handling of ELS REQ and RSP packets that contain addresses in the payload is shifted to the edge fabric switches connected to the node devices issuing and receiving the ELS REQ packet, the ingress and egress switches. This allows the ELS REQ and RSP packet payload address modification operations to be removed from the tasks handled by the router processor. As this removes a processing burden from the router processors, those router processors are free to handle other normal operations,…
TCP connection relocation
Granted: August 29, 2017
Patent Number:
9749175
In a network where there are two local area networks (LANs) connected over a wide area network (WAN) by paralleled LAN to WAN devices at each end of the WAN, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connections may be requested by a first near end LAN to WAN device and received at a first far end LAN to WAN device but the acknowledgement may be returned to a second far end LAN to WAN device. The second far end LAN to WAN device contacts the first far end LAN to WAN device and the TCP…
Dynamic service insertion in a fabric switch
Granted: August 22, 2017
Patent Number:
9742693
One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch includes a service management module and a packet processor. During operation, the service management module identifies a service provided by an appliance coupled to the switch via a local port. The packet processor constructs a notification message for a remote switch. The notification message includes information about the service and the appliance. In this way, the switch allows the remote switch to request the…
