Arista Networks, Inc.

Tellabs Operations, Inc.

Anirban Sinha

Kenneth James Duda

Udayakumar Srinivasan

Sudip Regmi

Sebastian Sapa

Duncan Stuart Ritchie

Praveen Madhav

Chakravarthi S Chigurapati

Travis Frederick Brown

A method and apparatus of a network element that installs a device driver used to manage hardware of the network element is described. In an exemplary embodiment, the network element detects, with a functionality of a network element operating system, the hardware of a data plane of the network element, where at least one component of the network element operating system is executing in a first container as a first set of processes. The network element further determines a device driver for the hardware and installs the device driver in a kernel of the host operating system. The network element additionally manages the data, with the network element operating system, using the device driver.

Dynamically installing a device driver by a network element

A method and apparatus of a device that simulates a plurality of network elements is described. In an exemplary embodiment, the device receives network topology information for the plurality of simulated network elements. The device further instantiates a container for each of the plurality of simulated network elements. The device additionally configures a set of processes for each of the plurality of containers, where each of the set of processes simulates at least one of the plurality of simulated network elements. The plurality of set of processes further implements a network topology represented by the network topology information. The device performs a test of the network topology and saves the results of the test.

Simulating a topology of network elements

A method and apparatus of a network element that hitlessly upgrades a network element operating system of a network element is described. In an exemplary embodiment, the network element hitlessly upgrades the network element operating system by instantiating a second container and starts a second set of processes using a second image of the network element operating system in the second container. In addition, the network element executes a first image of the network element operating system as a first set of processes in a first container. The network element additionally synchronizes state data between the first set of processes and the second set of processes. Furthermore, the network element sets the second set of processes as managing a plurality of hardware tables, and stops the first set of processes within the first container.

Hitless upgrades of a container of a network element

A method or network system able to efficiently redistribute information, data, and/or context between virtual machines ('VMs') using an in-memory file system ('IMFS') is disclosed. After requesting memory access by an application program, a process of VM using IMFS is able to forward the memory allocation request from a VM kernel operating under a VM environment to an emulator. The emulator, which operates between the VM kernel and the hypervisor, again redirects the memory allocation request to the hypervisor for storage allocation. The hypervisor subsequently allocates at least a portion of storage space in the IMFS in accordance with the memory allocation request.

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Vancouver, Canada

Anirban Sinha