3com Corporation

Michael Joseph Gleeson

Kevin Jennings

Kevin Loughran

Jerome Nolan

Daniel M O'Keeffe

John F Hickey

Christopher Alan Walker

David Nolan

Paul O'Keeffe

Paul Linehan

For each metered flow in a network unit there is a memory entry which defines a time stamp and a rate parameter. When a packet in the respective flow arrives, the time of arrival is compared with the time stamp. If the time of arrival is before the time stamp the packet is discarded. If the packet arrives after the date stamp, it is allowed to proceed and a new time stamp is computed in accordance with the rate parameter. One exemplary computation adds to the time stamp a time interval obtained by dividing the size of the packet by the rate parameter and preferably subtracting from the quotient the time interval between the arrival time and the previous time stamp.

Packet metering in high-speed network units

A network router has a distributed processing scheme for multicast packets. The router has a look-up and forwarding engine operative in response to the reception of an internet protocol multicast packet to direct the packet to a multiplicity of transmit ports which may or may not be connected to the source network segment from which the multicast packet was received by the router. Each transmit port is associated with a predetermined default network segment and the engine directs the packet to the ports (e.g. across the router's backplane) with an identification of the source network segment and control flags which enable processing means associated with the ports to determine by comparison of the respective network segment and the source network segment whether the packet is bridged from the respective port or routed, with relevant modification of the packet, from that port. The control flags comprises a first flag which can be set to allow the relevant modification and a second flag which can be set to allow the comparison between the source segment and the predetermined default segment.

Distributed multicast routing in packet-based communication network devices

Controlling the allocation of priority for data packets within a multi-port switch includes detecting the commencement of an HTTP message; enabling the storage of an identification of the source port on which that message was received by the switch; finding correspondence between destination data of packets and the said source port; and adjusting a priority allotted to said packets in response to the correspondence. The adjustment of priority preferably increases the priority of packets forwarded to said the port relative to priority allotted packets received at the source port and thereby allots asymmetric priority to traffic between a server and a client.

Allocation of asymmetric priority to traffic flow in network switches

A sub-system for forming part of a packet-data communication system for the transmission of data packets which contain media access control addresses and protocol addresses. The sub-system comprises a multiple-port network switch for forwarding data packets in response to an examination of the packets on the basis of the packets protocol addresses, and for performing said examination when a destination address in the packet corresponds to the media access control address of the switch, the switch being arranged for forwarding a packet on the basis of a media access control address therein when the destination address of the packet does not correspond to the media access control address of the switch, said switch including a forwarding database which comprises entries which relate a protocol address with a media access control address and an identification of a particular port of the switch. This switch may perform routing within a local-area network. The switch is configured so that protocol addresses may not be learned in the database in respect of the particular port. A network router, which may perform routing functions in respect of a wide-area network, is connected to the switch only by way of the particular port. The sub-system enables the switch to off-load from the router routing functions for the local-area network.

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Dublin, Ireland

Michael Joseph Gleeson