International Business Machines Corporation

Lenovo (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Nilanjan Mukherjee

Vijoy A Pandey

Dar-Ren Leu

Keshav G Kamble

Dayavanti G Kamath

Sushma Anantharam

Jayakrishna Kidambi

Nirapada Ghosh

Amitabha Biswas

Chandarani J Mendon

Vinit Jain

Stephan Benny

Nandakumar Peethambaram

Abhijit Prabhakar Kumbhare

Claude Basso

William Joseph Armstrong

Daniel Gene Eisenhauer

Ethan M Spiegel

Jeffrey James Lynch

Santosh Rajagopalan

Daljeet Singh

Ashok N Chippa

Badri Ramaswamy

Vipin K Garg

Ioana M Costea

Robert E Zagst, Jr

Sze W Lao

Dayavanti G Karnath

Dar-ren Leu

A tool for assigning virtual port channels to one or more logical switch routers in a distributed system. The tool receives, by one or more computer processors, a request to assign a virtual port channel to a second logical switch router. The tool sends, by one or more computer processors, a request to negotiate a link-down on the channel on a first logical switch router to a universal fiber port on the first logical switch router for processing. The tool sends, by one or more computer processors, a request to create the channel on the second logical switch router to a second interface manager on the second logical switch router for processing. The tool sends, by one or more computer processors, a request to negotiate a link up on the channel on the second logical switch router to the universal fiber port on the first logical switch router for processing.

Virtual port support in a logical switch architecture

In one embodiment, a system includes at least one processor and logic integrated with and/or executable by the at least one processor, the logic being configured to receive, by the at least one processor, a request to assign a media access control (MAC) address to a device on a port, determine, by the at least one processor, the MAC address to assign to the device based at least partially on the port, and send, by the at least one processor, a response to the request with the MAC address. According to a further embodiment, the logic may be configured to create a MAC address allocation table that includes a plurality of hash values, each hash value being associated with one port and a plurality of MAC addresses, wherein the assigned MAC address is one of the MAC addresses associated with the port in the MAC address allocation table.

Layer 2 packet switching without look-up table for Ethernet switches

A method and system for configuring communications over a physical communication link connected between a physical port of a network switch and a physical port of a physical network interface on an end station. The communication link between the physical port of the network switch and the physical port of the physical network interface is logically partitioned into a number of channels of communication. For each channel, a channel profile is generated that defines properties of that channel. The physical network interface is instructed to self-configure such that the physical network interface is able to communicate with the network switch over each channel in accordance with the channel profile defined for that channel.

Unified fabric port

Apparatuses, methods, program products, and systems for emulating end-host forwarding behavior is disclosed. A data module receives a data packet at an ingress port of a network switch. The data packet includes a source address and a destination address. The network switch includes ports designated as uplink ports and different ports designated as server ports. An update module creates an entry in the forwarding database based on the data packet. The entry for the data packet includes the source address and either an undefined server port and an undefined uplink port in response to the ingress port being an uplink port where an undefined port includes an identifier for a port that does not exist, or the ingress port and one of the one or more uplink ports in response to the ingress port being a server port. A transmission module forwards the packet to a destination address.

Emulating end-host mode forwarding behavior

According to one embodiment, a system includes at least one switching distributed line card (DLC) configured to apply Access Control Lists (ACLs) on each switching interface of the at least one switching DLC to direct certain received packets to at least one appliance DLC to have deep packet inspection services performed on the certain received packets, and at least one central switch fabric coupler (SFC) in communication with the at least one switching DLC, where the at least one appliance DLC and the at least one switching DLC are connected to the at least one central SFC. Other systems, methods and computer program products for providing scalable virtual appliance cloud (SVAC) services are described in more embodiments.

Scalable virtual appliance cloud (SVAC) and methods usable in an SVAC

In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a memory, a hardware processor, and logic integrated with and/or executable by the processor. The logic is configured to receive one or more software defined network (SDN) routes dictating a path through a network comprising a plurality of devices. The logic is also configured to store the one or more SDN routes to the memory along with one or more traditional routes learned by the apparatus and/or configured by an administrator, and indicate the one or more SDN routes as being of a type different from the traditional routes. Moreover, the logic is configured to receive a priority ordering for a plurality of routes stored in the memory from the SDN controller, the plurality of routes including at least one SDN route, and construct a route information base (RIB) based on the plurality of routes and the priority ordering.

Switch routing table utilizing software defined network (SDN) controller programmed route segregation and prioritization

Each of first and second bridges of a data network having respective links to an external node implement a network bridge component that forwards traffic inside the data network and a virtual bridge component that forwards traffic outside of the data network. A virtual bridge is formed including the virtual bridge components of the first and second bridges and an interswitch link (ISL) between the virtual bridge components of the first and second bridges. Data frames are communicated with each of multiple external network nodes outside the data network via a respective one of multiple link aggregation groups all commonly supported by the virtual bridge.

Distributed link aggregation group (LAG) for a layer 2 fabric

In one embodiment, a method for assigning a media access control (MAC) address includes receiving a request from a device for a MAC address at a port of a switching device, determining a MAC address to assign to the device based at least partially on the port, and responding to the request with the MAC address. In another embodiment, a method for retrieving a media access control (MAC) address includes sending a request for a MAC address to a MAC allocation server (MAAS), waiting a predetermined amount of time to receive a response to the request, wherein the response comprises the MAC address, and using the MAC address when the response to the request is received within the predetermined amount of time. Other systems, methods, and computer program products are presented according to more embodiments.

Layer 2 packet switching without look-up table for ethernet switches

Systems and methods are provided for overlaying a virtual network on a physical network in a data center environment. An overlay system is arranged in an overlay virtual network to include an overlay agent and an overlay helper. The overlay agent is implemented in an access switch. The overlay helper is implemented in an end station that is in communication with the access switch. Overlay parameters in compliance with an in-band protocol are transmitted between the overlay agent and the overlay helper.

Virtual network overlays

A data handling system network includes a data handling system that is communicatively coupled to a switch by a network. The data handling system includes one or more logical partitions. Each logical partition includes a plurality of virtual switches and a plurality of virtual network interface cards. Each virtual network interface card is associated with a particular virtual switch and includes a plurality of QoS queues. The switch includes one or more switch partitions. Each switch partition includes a plurality of QoS queues that are associated with the QoS queues of the virtual network interface card. A packet is received with the virtual switch and the virtual switch sets and associates a QoS priority flag with the received packet. The virtual switch forwards the packet to a QoS queue comprised within the virtual network interface card based upon the QoS priority flag.

Quality of service in multi-tenant network

In one embodiment, a system includes a network having a plurality of switches and one or more devices connected to one or more of the plurality of switches, a software defined network (SDN) controller connected to one or more of the plurality of switches in the network, the SDN controller having logic integrated with and/or executable by a processor, the logic being adapted to determine SDN routes through the network between the one or more devices and each of the plurality of switches and send one or more SDN routes to each switch in the network capable of communicating with the SDN controller. In other embodiments, methods and computer program products are also described for providing SDN routes through a network.

In one embodiment, a system includes a server running a virtualization platform, the virtualization platform including logic adapted for creating one or more virtual machines (VMs) and logic adapted for managing a virtual switch (vSwitch), a controller in communication with the server, the controller including logic adapted for assigning a media access control (MAC) address and a virtual local area network (VLAN) identifier (ID) to each of the one or more VMs, wherein a specific tenant to which the one or more VMs belongs is indicated using a tenant ID derived from the VLAN ID, the MAC address, or a combination thereof. Other systems, methods, and computer program products are also described according to more embodiments.

Scalable network overlay virtualization using conventional virtual switches

A distributed fabric system has distributed line card (DLC) chassis and scaled-out fabric coupler (SFC) chassis. Each DLC chassis includes a network processor and fabric ports. Each network processor of each DLC chassis includes a fabric interface in communication with the DLC fabric ports of that DLC chassis. Each SFC chassis includes a fabric element and fabric ports. A communication link connects each SFC fabric port to one DLC fabric port. Each communication link includes cell-carrying lanes. Each fabric element of each SFC chassis collects per-lane statistics for each SFC fabric port of that SFC chassis. Each SFC chassis includes program code that obtains the per-lane statistics collected by the fabric element chip of that SFC chassis. A network element includes program code that gathers the per-lane statistics collected by each fabric element of each SFC chassis and integrates the statistics into a topology of the entire distributed fabric system.

Diagnostics in a distributed fabric system

A switch for a switching network includes a plurality of ports for communicating data traffic and a switch controller that controls switching between the plurality of ports. The switch controller selects a forwarding path for the data traffic based on at least topological congestion information for the switching network. In a preferred embodiment, the topological congestion information includes sFlow topological congestion information and the switch controller includes an sFlow client that receives the sFlow topological congestion information from an sFlow controller in the switching network.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Nilanjan Mukherjee