Cisco Technology, Inc.

Johnston Reid McGaughey

Frederick Roland Schindler

Krishna Kumar Vavilala

Dylan Thomas Walker

Rudolph Benedict Klecka

Ali Ahmad Tareen

John R Hupton

Minli Lln

Scott Lawrence Lennartz

John Alvin Herrmann

Yonghan Kang

Iii Rudolph B Klecka

A feed-forward, time transfer mechanism is provided for time synchronization in a computer network. A device in a network receives a timestamp from a time synchronization master of the device that is associated with a clock message from the master. The device generates a new clock message for one or more slaves of the device and sends a new timestamp associated with the new clock message to the one or more slaves that is based on the timestamp received from the master, a determined amount of transmission delay between the device and the master, and an elapsed time between when the device received the clock message from the master and when the device generated the new clock message for the one or more slaves.

Feed-forward time transfer mechanism for time synchronization

Disclosed in an example embodiment herein is a technique for performing discovery and power budgeting for a power sharing group comprising a plurality of power supply modules configured for sharing power. Data is collected to determine members of the power sharing group, input power and load power for members of the power sharing group. A power budget is determined for members of the power sharing group and the power budget is distributed to members of the power sharing group. Load shedding inputs are calculated in the event that load power exceeds the capacity of the power sharing group.

Power discovery and allocation within a power sharing group

A set of network communications devices shares available power among themselves to meet overall system power loading. An individual device is configured to include a local power supply delivering power to a local power bus at a local supply voltage varied in response to a voltage control signal. A protection component is connected between the local power bus and an external power cable used to connect the device to another device for sharing power. The protection component provides an interruptible low-impedance DC path for carrying current based on direction and magnitude of a voltage difference between the local power bus and the external power cable. Control circuitry is used to: (a) drive a current-sharing bus connected among the devices to influence a value of a system current-sharing signal indicating a level of system power loading among the devices; (b) generate a difference signal indicating a difference between local power loading of the local power supply and the system power loading reflected by the system current-sharing signal; and (c) generate the voltage control signal based on the difference signal to achieve a predetermined sharing of the system power loading by the local power supply.

Power sharing network communications device

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Johnston Reid McGaughey