Infinera Corporation

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.

Barracuda Networks, Inc.

Inviscid Networks, Inc.

Jan Bialkowski

Biao Lu

Rajan Rao

Ting-Kuang Chiang

Ping Pan

Edward Everett Sprague

John Michael Terry

Parthiban Kandappan

Ann Gui

Khuzema Pithewan

Sri Mohana Satya Srinivas Singamsetty

Anthony Jorgenson

Maneesh Jain

Satyajeet Singh Ahuja

Marco Sosa

Radhakrishna Valiveti

Iftekhar Hussain

Wing Cheung

Joseph Juh-En Cheng

Satish K Sridharan

Gururaj Singh

Charles A Moorwood

A method, performed in a network that includes a group of nodes, includes identifying a path through a set of the nodes, where each node, in the set of nodes, has a data plane and a control plane; establishing a control plane tunnel, associated with the path, within the control plane of the nodes in the set of nodes; establishing a data plane tunnel, associated with the path, within the data plane of the nodes in the set of nodes, where the data plane tunnel is associated with the control plane tunnel and established through the same set of nodes; and transmitting a control message through the control plane tunnel to change a state of the data plane tunnel.

Fast protection path activation using control plane messages

A network device is configured to store parameters identifying a respective quality of service (QoS) to apply to corresponding different types of data flows; initiate establishment of a network channel between a source device and a destination device through an optical network; receive first and second data flows destined for the destination device, where the first data flow and the second data flow may have first and second data flow types; identify a first QoS and a different second QoS to apply to the first and second data flows based on the first and second data flow types and based on the parameters; apply the first QoS to the first data flow and the second QoS to the second data flow to form processed first and second data flows; and transmit, via the network channel, the processed first and second data flows towards the destination device.

Quality of service application for different data flow types

A system having a first and second interfaces is described. At least one of the first and second interfaces has a cell engine, a first processor circuit, a second processor circuit, and a first and second transponder. The first processor circuit is coupled with the first transponder and the cell engine so as to transmit a header cell to the cell engine. The second processor circuit is coupled with the second transponder and the cell engine so as to transmit a body cell to the cell engine. The system may aggregate the processing capacity of several processor circuits to form larger capacity logical interfaces. Packets may be fragmented into a header cell including the packet header and body cells including the packet payload and then transmit and reassemble the packet. The header cells may be fully handled by the processor circuit, while body cells may be passed on without processing.

Network interface and method of aggregating processor circuits

A method for detecting the liveliness and synchronizing the control-plane and data-plane on protecting connections in a shared mesh network environment through methods for probing the protecting connection conditions by sending in-band messages; and synchronization of control plane and data plane by using LSP-ping messages on the protecting connections.

Supporting OAM on protecting connections in shared mesh protection environment

The present invention provides a multi-hop mesh fabric that allows existing systems to be more effectively scaled to increase bandwidth and the number of nodes within the fabric. The multi-hop mesh fabric also provides redundancy for each of the connections between nodes. The multi-hop mesh fabric may be realized in various different architectures including the maximum number of hops within the fabric and the layout of the fabric (e.g., full mesh vs. sparse mesh). The multi-hop mesh fabric may further improve its efficiency by employing various load balancing techniques, different scheduling methods, and other traffic management technologies known by one of skill in the art. Furthermore, the multi-hop mesh fabric may be realized in different environments including intra-devices, inter-device intra-blade, intra-blade intra-system, and inter-system intra-cluster.

Scalable multi-hop mesh packet switch fabric

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates transmission buffer under-run protection. During operation, the system stores bits of a data frame in a transmission buffer associated with an output port. The system also monitors the state of the transmission buffer and commences transmission of the data frame to the output port prior to complete reception of the data frame in the transmission buffer. The system further determines that the amount of data stored in the transmission buffer is below a predetermined threshold and inserts a number of predetermined unique bit sequences after the partially transmitted data frame, thereby allowing a receiving device to temporarily suspend reception of the data frame and resume reception at a later time without dropping the data frame.

Transmission buffer under-run protection

A method comprising the steps of receiving a signal indicative of a failure of a working connection in a mesh network having a headend node, a tailend node and an intermediate node, and having a protecting connection, and transmitting an activation message via the protecting connection from at least one of the headend node and the tailend node to the intermediate node for activating the protecting connection.

Activation signaling in transport networks

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates flow control of multi-path-switched data frames. During operation the system transmits from an ingress edge device data frames destined to an egress edge device across different switched paths based on queue status of a core switching device and queue status of the egress edge device. The egress edge device is separate from the core switching device.

Multi-path switching with edge-to-edge flow control

A method includes receiving client data; extracting overhead data from the client data; mapping the client data into one or more frames, where each of the one or more frames has a frame payload section and a frame overhead section, where the client data is mapped into the frame payload section of the one or more frames; inserting the overhead data into the frame overhead section of the one or more frames; transporting the one or more frames across a network; extracting the overhead data from the frame overhead section of the one or more frames; recovering the client data from the one or more frames; inserting the extracted overhead data into the recovered client data to create modified client data; and outputting the modified client data.

Providing access to client overhead while transparently transmitting the client signal

Consistent with the present disclosure, circuitry may be provided in an optical receiver that can determine a bit error rate (BER) associated with an incoming signal by dividing the number of errored bits in a frame alignment signals (FAS) by the number of bits in the FAS. Accordingly, although an optical signal may be severely degraded and forward error correction (FEC) cannot be performed, a BER may be obtained if the FAS can be identified. The BER can then be used in a feedback loop to control various optical or electrical components in the receiver to improve or reduce the BER to a level, for example, at which FEC can be performed.

Method and system for control of communication equipment based on a bit error rate derived from a frame alignment signal

An interconnect switch stores data messages received from one or more source devices and prioritizes the data messages received from each source device based on the order that the data messages were received from the source device. For each available destination device associated with the interconnect switch, the interconnect switch identifies the data messages with the highest priority that are to be routed to the available destination device and selects one of the identified data messages for the available destination device. The interconnect switch then routes the selected data messages to the available destination devices.

Method and system for a multi-stage interconnect switch

A method of filtering packets having a class. The method includes the steps of accessing a table comprised of entries that include an indication to which class a given entry applies. Then there is the step of searching the entries until an entry whose class indication corresponds to a current class of the packet. Next there is the step of forwarding a frame associated with the entry whose class indication corresponds to the class of the packet. A data communication apparatus. The apparatus includes a mechanism for routing or switching packets. The apparatus includes a memory having information for routing or switching the packets. The apparatus includes a mechanism for compaction of information in the memory which removes redundancies in the information.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Jan Bialkowski