Nortel Networks Corporation

Xilinx, Inc.

Flextronics International Usa, Inc.

Ciena Corporation

Flextronics Ap, LLC

Ciena Luxembourg S.a.r.l.

Mark Brian Carson

John Courtney

David Michael Goodman

Brian S Martin

Premduth Vidyanandan

Gary J McClintock

Andrew Brown

Neil Watson

Gordon John Brebner

Christopher John Brown

Kevin J Cordina

Andrew L Jarabek

Weirong Jiang

Doug Wong

Aris Tombul

William Smith

Claire Greenwood

Mark Matthews

Ho Nguyen

Niall Gallagher

Shane J O'Neill

Cormac Kelly

Paul Linehan

James Kearney

An example hardware accelerator for a computer system includes a programmable device and further includes kernel logic configured in a programmable fabric of the programmable device, and an intellectual property (IP) checker circuit in the kernel logic. The IP checker circuit is configured to obtain a device identifier (ID) of the programmable device and a signed whitelist, the signed whitelist including a list of device IDs and a signature, verify the signature of the signed whitelist, compare the device ID against the list of device IDs, and selectively assert or deassert an enable of the kernel logic in response to presence or absence, respectively, of the device ID in the list of device IDs and verification of the signature.

Locking execution of cores to licensed programmable devices in a data center

An example hardware accelerator for a computer system includes a programmable device and further includes kernel logic configured in a first programmable fabric of the programmable device, a shell circuit configured in a second programmable fabric of the programmable device, the shell circuit configured to provide an interface between a computer system and the kernel logic, and an intellectual property (IP) checker circuit in the kernel logic The IP checker circuit is configured to obtain a device identifier (ID) from the first programmable fabric and a signed whitelist, the signed whitelist including a list of device IDs and a signature, verify the signature of the signed whitelist, compare the device ID against the list of device IDs, and selectively assert or deassert an enable of the kernel logic in response to presence or absence, respectively, of the device ID in the list of device IDs and verification of the signature.

Devices and methods for performing a cyclic redundancy check are disclosed. For example, a device has a splitter for splitting a data word into a plurality of paths. The device also has a plurality of cyclic redundancy check units. Each of the units is for processing a respective one of the paths. In addition, each of the units includes a first output port for outputting a cyclic redundancy check value for a packet ending within the unit and a second output port for outputting a cyclic redundancy check value for a packet starting or ongoing within the unit.

Modular and scalable cyclic redundancy check computation circuit

A method and apparatus that allows egress pointer smoothing data by evaluating the average fill of an elastic store. For one embodiment of the invention, by measuring the average fill, the 3 bytes of SOH and 87 bytes of data are taken together in each sample, and the relative phase of ingress and egress frames does not impact the fill depth calculation. For one such embodiment, the calculation is performed by summing the elastic store fill over a full row and increment/decrement decisions based on that average figure provide smooth rate of pointers coming out even as a section overhead moves through the frame.

Egress pointer smoother

A method and apparatus that allows egress pointer smoothing data by evaluating the average fill of an elastic store. For one embodiment of the invention, an elastic store implements a plurality of independent FIFOs, each FIFO having a write pointer and a read pointer, the write pointer including a marking pointer field and valid flag field. An incoming byte is received to a location within a traffic memory and the write pointer is used to instruct the traffic memory to indicate that the incoming bit has been received to the location. The valid flag field is set to indicate that the value at the location is currently valid.

Marking synchronization positions in an elastic store

It is often required to send a plurality of streams of data in parallel between two network nodes in a synchronous transmission network and also to maintain a particular alignment between those streams of data. This is particularly required when the streams of data are to be transmitted over a wide area network, for example, for data mirroring applications. Virtual concatenation is used for each of the individual data streams as known in the art and in addition, the individual virtual concatenation processes are synchronized or co-ordinated. At a destination node it is then possible to realign the individual data streams with respect to one another.

Virtual concatenation for parallel data streams

A method and system for providing single stage pointer and overhead processing is disclosed. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, data including bytes of each of multiple types of overhead data is received at a logical element of a communications network. The logical element includes a labeler to label the bytes of each of the multiple types of overhead data and a pointer processor to read the labeled bytes and perform specific operations corresponding to the label, wherein the bytes of at least one type of overhead data are labeled based on feedback provided by the pointer processor to the labeler.

Single stage pointer and overhead processing

Rate adaptation

In order to enable nodes with a single protocol switch core to be used in a synchronous transmission network carrying both SDH and SONET traffic then one option is to convert traffic between protocols at the various network nodes. For example, if the network node has a switch core arranged for SONET, then when SDH traffic arrives at that node it can first be converted to SONET before being processed by the switch core and then converted back to SDH again if required. Known methods of converting between SONET and SDH are not suited for use at egress points of network nodes where pointer alignment processes do not occur. A new method of converting between SONET and SDH is described which overcomes these problems by reordering the position of stuff columns.

Synchronous transmission network node

Described are a system and method of communicating status and protection information between cards in a communications system. The system has a plurality of cards connected to a backplane. The plurality of cards includes a tributary card and a cross-connect card for forwarding data traffic between cards in the network element. The backplane has a link that is dedicated to carrying out-of-band signals between the tributary card and the cross-connect card. The tributary card transmits information to the cross-connect card in a first out-of-band signal over the link and the cross-connect card broadcasts the information to the plurality of cards in the network element in a second out-of-band signal.

System and method of communicating status and protection information between cards in a communications system

One aspect of the invention provides an ingress apparatus comprising a signal processing apparatus for receiving an incoming data frame and locating the position of path overhead, and a monitoring apparatus arranged to extract information from the located path overhead. The ingress apparatus further includes an insertion apparatus for receiving, from the monitoring apparatus, information extracted from the path overhead of one or more signal path, and being further arranged to insert the extracted information into a respective data frame component which occupies a fixed position in a data frame. Thus, information which would normally occupy a non-fixed position in a data frame is moved to a fixed position. As a result, the information can subsequently be accessed without having to employ relatively complex apparatus for locating information which occupies a non-fixed position.

Transmission path monitoring

A technique for provisioning cross-connects in network switching environment includes receiving a portion of the an input data stream including having header data and the payload data, the payload data occurring at a first offset relative to the header data and generating a delayed version of the portion of the input data stream. The technique also includes generating a portion of a retimed data stream by selecting between the portion of the input data stream and the delayed version of the portion of the input data stream, the retimed data stream including the header data and the payload data, the payload data occurring at a second offset relative to the header data.

Managing data in a subtended switch

The invention provides a method and apparatus for providing hitless protection switching in a transmission systems which support a standardized implementation of virtual concatenation. A switching apparatus is arranged to receive data signals on at least two transmission paths and to output data from a selected one of said transmission paths. The apparatus is arranged to align the respective received data signals so that a selector mechanism can select between corresponding elements of the received data signals. This arrangement allows hitless switching to be performed since there is no loss or repetition of signal elements when switching occurs. In a preferred embodiment, data in respect of each frame of each data signal is stored and the selector mechanism selects between paths on a frame-by-frame basis by comparing quality information carried by the data signals. This arrangement offers a very low end to end Bit Error Rate (BER) performance. The invention is suitable for both synchronous and non-synchronous networks (for example, OTN) which implement standardized virtual concatenation.

Hitless protection switching

Hitless Switching provides a method of delivering data to a remote point in a reliable fashion. However, no guarantee or acknowledgement is provided that data has been written to a remote storage device. This is problematic for remote data mirroring. Apparatus and methods are provided to guarantee that data arriving at a remote terminal is correctly stored. Interaction with hitless switching and remote optical mirroring systems are described.

Data mirroring system

The invention provides a method and apparatus for providing hitless protection switching in a synchronous transmission system. A switching apparatus is arranged to receive data signals on at least two transmission paths and to output data from a selected one of said transmission paths. The apparatus is arranged to align the respective received data signals so that a selector mechanism can select between corresponding elements of the received data signals. This arrangement allows hitless switching to be performed since there is no loss or repetition of signal elements when switching occurs. In a preferred embodiment, data in respect of each frame of each data signal is stored and the selector mechanism selects between paths on a frame-by-frame basis by comparing quality information carried by the data signals. This arrangement offers a very low end to end Bit Error Rate (BER) performance.

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Belfast, United Kingdom

Mark Brian Carson