Oracle International Corporation

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Cheng Tang

Ariel Cohen

Ashok Krishnamurthi

David S Allison

Jonathan Davar

Chickayya Naik

Viswanath Krishnamurthy

Frank Salzmann

Shreyas Shah

Yiqun Cai

Vikram Venkataraghavan

Ming Fung Wong

Vipul Jain

Mike Dvorkin

Provided is a novel approach for connecting servers to peripherals, such as NICs, HBAs, and SAS/SATA controllers. Also provided are methods of arranging peripherals within one or more I/O directors, which are connected to the servers over an Ethernet network. Such arrangement allows sharing the same resource among multiple servers.

Remote shared server peripherals over an ethernet network for resource virtualization

Provided is a novel approach for connecting servers to peripherals, such as NICs, HBAs, and SAS/SATA controllers. Also provided are systems for arranging peripherals within one or more I/O directors, which are connected to the servers over an Ethernet network. Such arrangement allows sharing the same resource among multiple servers.

Remote shared server peripherals over an Ethernet network for resource virtualization

Methods and apparatus are provided for virtualizing port adapter resources such as network interface cards (NICs) used to connect servers to packet based networks. Resources are offloaded from individual servers onto a resource virtualization switch. Servers connected to the resource virtualization switch using an I/O bus connection share access to NICs. Redundancy can be provided using multipathing mechanisms implemented at individual servers or high availability mechanisms implemented at the resource virtualization switch. Switchover can occur between ports on the same port adapter, between ports on separate adapters, or between ports on separate resource virtualization switches.

High availability and I/O aggregation for server environments

The invention relates to a system and method for efficiently distributing multicast messages within computer networks configured to have one or more virtual local area network (VLAN) domains. A multicast network device (MND), having a plurality of interfaces, includes a multicast controller for efficiently distributing multicast messages among subscribing entities associated with various VLAN domains. The multicast controller, which is in communicating relationship with the interfaces, includes a VLAN assignment engine for assigning responsibility for the VLAN domains to the extent there are multiple MNDs. The multicast controller also accesses a multicast tag source to establish a plurality of novel VLAN tags for efficiently distributing multicast messages, including a sub-regional Multicast VLAN Identifier (MVLAN-ID) that encompasses all of the VLAN domains for which the respective MND is responsible, and one or more color-limited MVLAN-IDs that encompass all of the VLAN domains for which the MND is responsible except for one. The multicast controller then tags multicast messages with its sub-regional or a color-limited MVLAN-ID depending on whether the message is considered internal or external by the respective MND. The tagged messages are then forwarded for distribution to the subscribers associated with the various VLAN domains.

System and method for distributing multicasts in virtual local area networks

A technique implements forwarding operation shortcuts at a switch for multicast data traffic routed between subnetworks of a computer network. A first multicast frame is forwarded from the switch to a router, which peforms route processing and forwarding operations for a packet encapsulated within the frame. During execution of the operations, the router provides multicast flow and additional information concerning the routed packet to the switch in accordance with a novel multicast shortcut control protocol. The information is used by the switch to implement a novel multicast shortcut for subsequent frames received at the switch having the multicast packet flow.

Method and apparatus for multicast switching using a centralized switching engine

Growing community of inventors

Saratoga, CA, United States of America

Cheng Tang