International Business Machines Corporation

Lenovo (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Alexander Philip Campbell

Keshav G Kamble

Vijoy A Pandey

Dar-Ren Leu

Jian Meng

Stephen John Flint

Donald Richard Dignam

David Iles

Sushma Anantharam

Nandakumar Peethambaram

Eric Rong Ao

Atul A Tambe

Rong Eric Ao

Georges Turcotte

Christian Savard

A device, according to one embodiment, includes a fuse, and a resistor electrically coupled directly to the fuse in series therewith. A hybrid device, according to another embodiment, includes a fuse, and a resistor electrically coupled directly to the fuse in series therewith in a single package. A resistance of the resistor is 1 ohm or less, and is substantially temperature insensitive.

Resistor and fuse overcurrent protection device

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a request from a remote distributed fabric protocol (DFP) system master, using a dedicated processor of a DFP system member, to register local IC devices on the DFP system member, and sending an acknowledgement including a list of local IC bus devices back to the DFP system master using the dedicated processor of the DFP system member. The acknowledgement present on the DFP system member. In another embodiment, a system includes a local processor, one or more local IC bus devices, and a dedicated processor electrically coupled to the local IC bus devices. The dedicated processor is configured to route interrupts from the local IC bus devices to the local processor, and expose the local IC devices to a remote DFP system master by sending details of the local IC bus devices to the remote DFP system master.

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A differential transmission line includes a positive conductor on which a positive complementary component of a differential signal is transmitted, and a negative conductor parallel to the positive conductor on which a negative complementary component of the differential signal is transmitted. A quarter wavelength differential coupler is inserted along a length of the positive and negative conductors. The quarter wavelength differential coupler has a length corresponding to a frequency of common mode noise on the positive and negative conductors. The quarter wavelength differential coupler reduces the common mode noise at the frequency as the differential signal passes through the quarter wavelength differential coupler.

Differential transmission line having quarter wavelength differential coupler to reduce common mode noise

A clustered network may include a plurality of switch boxes where a master switch box may communicate and control hardware devices in remote switch boxes. The switch boxes in the network may each include a multiplexer, for example, a field programmable array (FPGA) that may process message requests related to hardware devices of a switch box. If the hardware device is in a remote switch box, then the FPGA of the master switch box may process the status data from the remote switch box so that a local processor in the master switch box can read the status data.

Integrated device managment over Ethernet network

According to one embodiment, a method includes performing functionality of a management plane and a control plane for a switch system using a processor of an external host coupled to the switch system via one or more peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) ports. The method also includes providing a direct memory access (DMA) facility between the external host and switching logic of the switch system. The switch system includes a PCIe interface block coupled to PCIe ports configured to couple to external PCIe devices. Also, the PCIe interface block includes logic configured to provide DMA for each PCIe lane thereof. The switch system also includes multiple switched Ethernet ports configured to couple to one or more external Ethernet devices and switching logic configured to switch between the multiple switched Ethernet ports and the PCIe ports using DMA and a local processor coupled to the PCIe interface block.

Pass-through converged network adaptor (CNA) using existing ethernet switching device

In one embodiment, a method includes sending a request to one or more distributed fabric protocol (DFP) system members in order to retrieve one or more events from the one or more DFP system members, receiving one or more acknowledgements to the request from the one or more DFP system members at a local network switch of a DFP system master, upon receipt of at least one packet in which the one or more events are encapsulated as data: decoding the at least one packet to retrieve details of the one or more events using a dedicated processor of the DFP system master, creating and sending a message signaled interrupt (MSI) comprising the details of the one or more events to a local processor of the DFP system master using the dedicated processor, and reading the MSI using the local processor of the DFP system master.

Providing real-time interrupts over ethernet

A differential transmission line with a common mode notch filter includes adjacently arranged, repeating differential transmission line pair sections. The sections have lengths that are each equal to half of an electric wavelength of a lowest frequency of a common mode electromagnetic wave to be suppressed during transmission of an electric signal over the differential transmission line. Each section includes a pair of conductors separated from one another by a spacing. The width of each conductor and the spacing between the conductors of each section vary over the length thereof according to a same pattern such that at every point over the length of each section a differential mode impedance of the differential transmission line is identical. A common mode impedance of the differential transmission line changes periodically in accordance with the lengths of the sections.

Differential transmission line with common mode notch filter

According to one embodiment, a switch system includes an external host connected via a peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) port to a switch system, the external host being configured to perform functionality of a management plane and a control plane for the switch system, the external host having a processor. In another embodiment, a computer program product includes a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code including computer readable program code configured to perform functionality of a management plane and a control plane for a switch system using a processor of an external host. Other systems, computer program products, and methods are described according to more embodiments.

Pass-through converged network adaptor (CNA) using existing Ethernet switching device

In one embodiment, a method includes accessing every local IC bus device, using a local processor of a distributed fabric protocol (DFP) system member, to ascertain which local IC bus devices are present, receiving a request from a remote DFP system master, using a dedicated processor of the DFP system member, to register local IC devices on the DFP system member in order to allow the DFP system master to have access to the local IC devices, sending an acknowledgement to the request back to the DFP system master, receiving a read request from the DFP system master to read the local IC bus devices and authenticating the read request, encapsulating details of the local IC bus devices into a packet similar to that in which the read request was received, and sending the packet to a local network switch to be switched to the DFP system master.

In one embodiment, a switch includes a processor and logic integrated with and/or executable by the processor, the logic being configured to cause the processor to receive a packet at an ingress port of the switch, forward the packet to a buffered switch when at least one congestion condition is met, where the buffered switch is configured to evaluate congestion conditions of a fabric network, and forward the packet to a low-latency switch when the at least one congestion condition is not met, where the low-latency switch includes an additional policy table provided with forwarding decisions based on the congestion conditions of the fabric network. Other switches, systems, methods, and computer program products for providing low latency packet forwarding with guaranteed delivery are described according to more embodiments.

Low-latency lossless switch fabric for use in a data center

A scaled-out fabric coupler (SFC) chassis includes a plurality of root fabric cards installed on the one side of the SFC chassis. Each root fabric card has a plurality of electrical connectors. A plurality of line cards is installed on the opposite side of the SFC chassis. Each line card is one of two types of line cards. One of the two types of line cards is a switch-based network line card having network ports for connecting to servers and switches. The other of the two types of line cards is a leaf fabric card having fabric ports for connecting to a fabric port of a network element. Each of the two types of the line cards has electrical connectors that mate with one electrical connector of each root fabric card installed in the chassis.

Dual-role modular scaled-out fabric coupler chassis

A switch includes network ports and a network processor with a fabric interface that provides SerDes (Serializer/Deserializer) channels. The network processor divides each packet received over the network ports into cells and distributes the cells across the SerDes channels. Fabric ports of the switch communicate with the fabric interface to transmit cells to and receive cells from the fabric interface. The switch is selectively configurable as a standalone switch by connecting each fabric port of the switch to another of the fabric ports of the switch, as a member of a switch stack by connecting each fabric port of the switch to a different other switch through one fabric port of that other switch, or as a member of a distributed fabric system by connecting each fabric port of the switch to a different scaled-out fabric coupler (SFC) chassis by an SFC fabric port of that SFC chassis.

Multi-role distributed line card

A distributed virtual chassis comprises scaled-out fabric coupler (SFC) boxes. Each SFC box has fabric ports and a cell-based switch fabric for switching cells associated with a packet among the SFC fabric ports of that SFC box. Distributed line cards (DLCs) include switching DLCs and an appliance DLC (A-DLC). Each switching DLC has network ports. Each switching DLC and A-DLC has DLC fabric ports. Each switching DLC and A-DLC is connected to each of the SFC boxes. The A-DLC provides an upper layer service for packets arriving on the network ports of the switching DLCs. To forward a packet to the A-DLC, a switching DLC divides the packet into cells and distributes the cells among the SFC boxes. The SFC boxes forward the cells to the A-DLC, and the A-DLC reassembles the packet from the cells and provides the upper layer service to the packet.

Distributed chassis architecture having integrated service appliances

In one embodiment, a system includes a switch configured for communicating with a low-latency switch and a buffered switch, the switch having a processor adapted for executing logic, logic adapted for receiving a packet at an ingress port of a switch, logic adapted for receiving congestion information, logic adapted for determining that at least one congestion condition is net based on at least the congestion information, logic adapted for applying a packet forwarding policy to the packet when the at least one congestion condition is met, logic adapted for forwarding the packet to a buffered switch when the packet satisfies the packet forwarding policy, and logic adapted for forwarding the packet to a low-latency switch when the at least one congestion condition is not met.

Growing community of inventors

Kanata, Canada

Alexander Philip Campbell