3com Corporation

Edward A Heiner, Jr

James Scott Hiscock

Joris Johannes Maria Wils

G Stodel Friedman

Stephen L Van Seters

John Joseph Harrison, Jr

Michael J Seaman

David J Husak

Kenneth J DeLong

Lawrence Aaron Boxer

David S Miller

A packet based high-speed communications mesh is disclosed including a plurality of switches trunked network interfaces including links connecting the switches to form a trunk cluster. Edge devices are connected to the trunk cluster via trunked links. The trunked links provide a physical connection form each switch to each edge device. A configuration protocol is used for configuring the trunk cluster by eliminating links connected to a switch upon loss of connectivity to a switch. The protocol includes trunk configuration protocol packets transmitted by the edge devices. A trunk switch agent associated with each switch receives and transmits all trunking protocol packets for the associated switch and builds up an identifier list upon monitoring trunk configuration protocol packets. The agent monitors link status and accesses the list. The agent issues a requests to bring down all links to edge devices on a trunk switch for removal of the trunk switch upon all links to a particular edge device being lost and another trunk switch of a trunk cluster having at least one link to the particular edge device. Edge devices stop transmitting to the trunk switch upon receiving link down indications from link control hardware.

High-speed trunk cluster reliable load sharing system using temporary port down

Flow of data units to an address resolution processor is controlled to inhibit multiple data units from a single multicast flow from being enqueued with the address resolution processor. In a switch having a plurality of Input/Output Application Specific Integrated Circuits (&ldquo;I/O ASICs&rdquo;) with a plurality of ports, no more than one data unit from each I/O ASIC is permitted to be enqueued with the address resolution processor at any point in time. A separate learn pending indicator may be defined for each I/O ASIC in the switch.

Learn pending frame throttle

A Logical Switch Set (LSS) is provided comprising two or more switches that act as a single packet forwarding device with specific connection rules. The single packet forwarding device is a single logical unit. The LSS may be used as either a redundant switch set (RSS) or as a Load Sharing Switch Set (LSSS). The maximum throughput of the LSSS increases with each additional switch. A LSSS can only interconnect with the other devices via trunked links that contain at least one physical connection to each switch. The RSS may include a trunk link connection and a resilient link connection

Logical switch set

A packet based high speed mesh forms a trunk cluster. The trunk cluster is constructed with a set of loosely coupled switches, a configuration protocol, trunked network interfaces, and optionally a reachablilty protocol. The trunk cluster provides a Logical LAN service. Each switch in the trunk cluster provides a single &ldquo;shared LAN&rdquo; by interconnecting two or more links. The edge devices attached to the links run a trunk configuration protocol. These attached edge devices view the trunked ports as if trunked ports are connected to a shared LAN with multiple other attached devices.

Scalable logical LAN

A distributed data structure providing an indication of the validity of a data value or values associated with a given key value. The data structure has at least one data entry associated with each of plural key entries. The validity indication enables asynchronous updates to key and data entries by preventing retrieval of invalid data values, while enabling a simultaneous search of the key entries for a particular key value. The validity indication also allows the data structure to be sparsely populated; it is possible to mark a key value as invalid such that binary searching of the data structure is unaffected and invalid data is not retrieved. Data structure throughput is enhanced as a result of minimized maintenance overhead.

Method and apparatus using a binary search engine for searching and maintaining a distributed data structure

A method and apparatus are disclosed which permit multipoint trunking among a plurality of network devices connected by a trunk comprising at least two physical links. A trunk control message protocol (TCMP) is described which assures that message traffic may be delivered to the respective devices over the individual links of the trunk prior to inclusion of the respective links as active links in the trunk. The trunk acts as a single network port for each of the devices utilizing the trunk and is layered over a plurality of media access control (MAC) ports which interface to the respective links. The disclosed trunking technique and apparatus permit the bandwidth of the trunk to be increased in increments through the addition of links to the trunk.

Growing community of inventors

Londonderry, NH, United States of America

Edward A Heiner, Jr