Cisco Technology, Inc.

Ganesh Srinivasa Bhat

Subrat Mohanty

Manpreet Singh Sandhu

Linda T Cheng

Ali Ahmad Tareen

Stanley Ho

Moiz Alam

Sanjay Kumar Hooda

Abilash Menon

Venkatabalakrishnan Krishnamurthy

James Cameron Gibson

Tushar J Patel

Jimit Maheta

Eden Tan

Manpreet Sing Sandhu

Methods and systems are disclosed. The method comprises: designating a first plurality of links from a first stack segment to a second stack segment as a first etherchannel link; designating a second plurality of links from the first stack segment to a third stack segment as a second etherchannel link, where the second stack segment and the third stack segment are in communication with a fourth stack segment; designating the first etherchannel link and the second etherchannel link as members of a hierarchical etherchannel link; and sending a packet from the first stack segment to the fourth stack segment using the hierarchical etherchannel link.

Method and apparatus to optimize multi-destination traffic over etherchannel in stackwise virtual topology

Methods and systems for configuring a first switch for frontside networking. The method includes: discovering the capabilities of a second switch connected to the first switch, where the capabilities include frontside stacking; changing a port on the first switch connected to the second switch from a standard port to a frontside stacking port; discovering a topology of a network containing the first switch and the second switch; and creating a drop table having entries for at least the first switch and the second switch.

Systems and methods for enabling frontside stacking of switches

A method for specialized processing of data in a port-extended network comprises receiving, by the control node of the port-extended network, a data frame that includes, at a first field of the data frame, information indicative of an incoming port at which the data frame was received, the first field having been inserted by a satellite node associated with the port. The method also comprises determining that one or more packets of a frame require specialized processing, and replacing the information contained in the first field with information indicative of the specialized processing. The method further comprises replacing information contained in a second field with information indicative of an outgoing port of a second satellite node of the port-extended network. A modified data frame is transmitted onto the port-extended network, the modified data frame that includes the information indicative of the specialized processing in the first field.

Systems and methods for designating packets for customized data processing in port-extended architectures

A method for resolving split conditions in a port-extended network comprises receiving first information indicative of a first MAC address of a first controller on a first fabric link and second information indicative of a second MAC address of a second controller on a second fabric link. The method may also include determining that the first MAC address differs from the second MAC address and responsively determining that one of the first MAC address or the second MAC address was previously associated with a primary controller of the port-extended network. One of the first controller or the second controller is designated as the primary controller of the port-extended network based on the determination that one of the first MAC address or the second MAC address was previously associated with the primary controller.

Systems and methods for detecting and resolving split-controller or split-stack conditions in port-extended networks

A feature trace capability may be provided for features including, but not limited to, automatic quality of service (auto QoS), power over Ethernet (PoE), and fabric compatibility. A network command may be implemented with the capability to validate features across a network path or the network as a whole. The output of this network command may result in the display of details about supported features. Such a command may also result in a listing of what devices require upgrades to support any number of features of interest. Embodiments of the feature trace capability may be configured such that the query gets terminated once a final subnet (or endpoint) is reached. Alternatively, the feature trace capability may be configured such that the query gets terminated after a maximum hop count, or trace total (trace_ttl) is reached. Such a limit may prevent the continuous flooding of the network.

Trace feature across the network (depth and breadth)-wise

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Union City, CA, United States of America

Ganesh Srinivasa Bhat