Ciena Corporation

Rockstar Consortium US LP

James Tierney

David G Stuart

Sebastien Gareau

Daniel Rivaud

Ian Hamish Duncan

Anthony Mayenburg

Simon J E Shearman

Gerard Leo Swinkels

Michael Watford

Bradley D Venables

Andrew L Jarabek

Marc W Leclair

Timothy Norman

David Stuart

A modular network element includes one or more lineboxes which are a hybrid between a rack mounted module and a line module which is inserted in a chassis; one or more linebox carriers which are rack mountable and configured to selectively receive the one or more lineboxes and provide power connectors and data connectors thereto; and a core chassis including one or more switch modules, one or more controller modules, and a set of connectors located at the rear for cabling to the power connectors and the data connectors on the one or more linebox carriers.

Modular network element architecture

A switch system includes interface circuitry configured to ingress and egress clients each including a stream of encoded blocks; and switch circuitry configured to switch the clients between the interface circuitry based on block boundaries of the stream of encoded blocks. The stream of encoded blocks can include 64 b/66 b encoding. Each block in the stream of encoded blocks can be switched intact.

Flexible Ethernet switching systems and methods

Systems and methods of managing a modular network element as a single entity and the modular network element includes a plurality of line modules and zero or more switch modules in a chassis. The plurality of line modules are located separate from the chassis and connected to the chassis and/or to one another via cabling. The method includes operating a management plane between the plurality of line modules and the zero or more switch modules via one or more dedicated links in the cabling; managing the plurality of line modules and the zero or more switch modules as a single network element utilizing a chassis management protocol over the management plane; and designating one of a controller in the chassis and a processor in one of the plurality of line modules operating as a virtual controller as primary for the chassis management protocol.

Scalable management plane for a modular network element

Systems and methods of Ethernet path selection in a modular network element including one or more ingress line modules, a plurality of switch modules in a chassis, and one or more egress line modules, wherein the one or more ingress line modules and the one or more egress line modules are located separate from one another and connected to the chassis via cabling. The method includes distributing one or more Ethernet flows from the one or more ingress line modules to the one or more egress line modules via the plurality of switch modules; receiving fabric state information at the one or more ingress line modules from the core chassis out-of-band via the cabling; and, responsive to congestion on a path through the plurality of switch modules, selecting a new path by an ingress line module for an Ethernet flow.

Multipath selection in an ethernet fabric in a modular network element

A switch system configured to switch Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) client services includes interface circuitry configured to ingress and egress FlexE clients; and switch circuitry communicatively coupled to the interface circuitry and configured to switch portions of the FlexE clients utilizing a cell switch and Optical Transport Network (OTN) over Packet (OPF) techniques. A method of switching Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) client services includes ingressing and egressing FlexE clients via interface circuitry; interfacing the FlexE clients with switch circuitry communicatively coupled to the interface circuitry; and switching portions of the FlexE clients with the switch circuitry utilizing a cell switch and Optical Transport Network (OTN) over Packet (OPF) techniques.

Flexible ethernet switching systems and methods

A Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) switch system configured to switch a FlexE client service includes interface circuitry configured to ingress and egress a plurality of FlexE clients; and switch circuitry configured to switch portions of the FlexE clients based on 64 b/66 b block boundaries between the interface circuitry. A node configured to switch a Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) client service in a network includes one or more line cards configured to ingress and egress a plurality of FlexE clients; and one or more switch fabrics configured to switch portions of the FlexE clients based on 64 b/66 b block boundaries between the one or more line cards.

A method of forwarding traffic through a network node including an ingress IO card, an egress IO card, and a pair of parallel switch fabric cards. One of the switch fabric cards is designated as a working switch fabric card, and the other one of the switch fabric cards is designated as a protection switch fabric card. In the ingress IO card, the traffic flow is divided into a committed information rate (CIR) component and an extra information rate (EIR) signal. Under a normal operating condition of the node, the ingress IO card forwards the CIR traffic component through the working switch fabric card, and forwards the EIR traffic component through the protection switch fabric card. Upon detection of a failure impacting the working switch fabric card, the ingress IO card drops the EIR traffic component and forwards the CIR traffic component through the protection switch fabric card.

Fabric extra traffic

The present disclosure provides a fabric ingress scheduler and method that distributes ingress packet traffic in a time division multiplex (TDM) system, both fabric interface aggregate and per connection, deterministically across fabric paths. Advantageously, the fabric ingress scheduler and method minimizes fabric latency and prevents fabric interface head-of-line blocking. The fabric ingress scheduler and method utilizes the fact that each connection flow has a known maximum rate which must be reserved through the fabric for prevention of data loss (essentially circuit switching using a packet fabric). In exemplary embodiments, the fabric interface supports per packet fabric path selection. Generally, the fabric ingress scheduler and method generally provides a deterministic scheduling of ingress packets to fabric paths.

Time division multiplex packet fabric ingress scheduler and method

A count of data segments is maintained. The count includes data segments in a queue and data segments in transit between a data source and the queue. A flow of data segments from the data source is controlled, based on a value of the count.

Growing community of inventors

Carp, Canada

James Tierney