Dell Products Inc.

Force10 Networks, Inc.

Pathangi Narasimhan Janardhanan

Shivakumar Sundaram

Krishnamurthy Subramanian

Ramasubramani Mahadevan

Anoop Ghanwani

Mohnish Anumala

Balaji Venkat Venkataswami

Avinash Natarajan

Mukesh Moopath Velayudhan

Senthil Kumar Ganesan

Raja Sathianarayan Jayakumar

Wanqun Bao

Ravikumar Sivasankar

Amita Gupta Tare

According to some embodiments, the switching units of a single domain ('first domain') discover that they are connected to switching units of another, 'second domain', and the switching units of each domain configure a single LAG of inter-domain links each of which interconnects switching units of different domains. The LAG connects multiple switching units of the first domain to multiple switching units of the second domain.

System and method for determining the configuration of switches in virtual link trunking environments

A system and method of determining the configuration of a network switching unit includes a network switching unit having one or more hardware processors. The one or more hardware processors are configured to execute code to cause the network switching unit to perform operations. The operations include detecting an inter-domain link aggregation group (LAG) associated with a first domain ID and receiving an inter-domain LAG detection message from a peer network switching unit. The inter-domain LAG detection message includes a second domain ID. In response to determining that the first domain ID and the second domain ID match, the network switching unit performs further operations including assigning a virtual link trunking (VLT) identifier to the inter-domain LAG, transmitting a VLT configuration message to the peer network switching unit, and forwarding network traffic to a first domain associated with the first domain ID using a VLT associated with the VLT identifier.

Embodiments of the present invention include systems and methods for minoring data packets upon triggering of events in a network device. In the network device, a usage event is specified, where occurrence of the usage event is indeterminable, at least partially, from the information contained in the data packets. When the network device receives a data packet via an input port, it processes the data packet as the data packet flows along a pipeline in the network device. If a specified usage event is triggered while being processed, the data packet is mirrored via an output port of the network device so that the mirrored data packet may be analyzed by an analysis engine.

Event-based packet mirroring

A switch (R.) uses a forwarding database (F) to forward multicast packets. The switch participates in a multicast protocol (e.g. PIM) with other switches, and also uses a snooping database (e.g. for IGMP snooping) to learn about local group members, i.e. members for which the router serves as a local multicast router (e.g. the local members do not participate in the multicast protocol). When the switch learns of a local member of a multicast group, the switch updates the snooping database but may or may not install the snooping information in the forwarding database. Thus, the forwarding database is not necessarily provisioned for locally sourced data packets addressed to the group until receipt of a locally sourced data packet addressed to the group. If no such packets are received, the forwarding database is not provisioned for such packets, and therefore its size is reduced. Other features are also provided.

Delayed updating of forwarding databases for multicast transmissions over telecommunications networks

In a packet switch with databases () used for packet forwarding, the database pieces are identified by version identifiers (V) which are used by the packet switch's modules (LCx, RPM, RPM) in exchanging information on the databases and requesting updates to the databases. For example, if a primary management module fails and the management is transferred to a secondary management module, the secondary management module requests forwarding modules (e.g. line cards) to identify the database pieces stored on the forwarding modules, and to update the databases as needed. Use of version identifiers reduces the amount of data that has to be transferred in connection with such requests.

Packet switch modules for computer networks with efficient management of databases used in forwarding of network traffic

An information handling system is provided. The information handling system includes a plurality of forwarding processors, the plurality of forwarding processors each including a memory having a forwarding host table and a forwarding route table. The information handling system also includes at least one switching device coupled to the plurality of forwarding processors, the at least one switching device including a memory having a destination module and port table, a switching device host table and a switching device route table, wherein the at least one switching device is configured to perform an extended lookup in at least one of the switching device host table and switching device route table based on values included in a fabric header of information routed to the switching device to determine a destination of the information. A method for extending lookup tables is also provided that adds lookup tables in a switching device.

Systems and methods for routing information in an information handling system using extended L3 lookup tables

An extended bridge structure that includes a controlling bridge and port extenders is disclosed. A port extender according to some embodiments of the present invention includes a processor that processes receives packets in a way that executes at least one procedure that substitutes for a function of the controlling bridge. A controlling bridge according to the present invention provides data to the port extender that enables it to execute the at least one procedure that substitutes for a function of the controlling bridge.

Port extender

Each router in a group of routers (R.R.) includes an interface (P) assigned a common virtual address for multicast (VAM). The common VAM is advertised in router advertisings for multicast traffic; other addresses are advertised for unicast. The member routers in the group share multicast forwarding databases. Increased throughput is therefore provided for multicast traffic without traffic replication. Any router in the group can service requests from end-point sources and receivers of multicast traffic, e.g. requests to join or leave a multicast group, or requests presented as multicast packets for forwarding to a multicast group.

Processing of multicast traffic in computer networks

A system and method includes a network device comprising a control unit, a first port coupled to the control unit and configured to couple the network device to a first device using a first network link. The control unit is configured to receive a data packet from the first device on the first port, inspect the data packet for an indicator of an incast communication pattern, and implement a data flow shaper on a network when the indicator is present in the data packet.

System and method of flow shaping to reduce impact of incast communications

A system and method of configuration of link aggregation groups includes a control unit and a port coupled to the control unit and configured to couple the network switching device to a neighboring switch. The control unit is configured to transmit a probe message to the neighboring switch, receive a remote switch identifier and link aggregation group (LAG) identifier from the neighboring switch, determine whether the remote switch identifier matches a previously received remote switch identifier and the remote LAG identifier matches a previously received remote LAG identifier. When both match, determine a first LAG associated with the previously received remote switch identifier and the previously received remote LAG identifier and assign the port to the first LAG. When both do not match, to create a second LAG, assign the port to the second LAG, and associate the remote switch identifier and the remote LAG identifier with the second LAG.

System and method for configuration of link aggregation groups

An information handling system is provided. The information handling system includes a plurality of aggregation devices configured to distribute information in a virtual link trunk and a plurality of nodes coupled to the aggregation devices. When one of the plurality of aggregation devices received a reboot command, that aggregation device is configured to transmit a first message to the nodes indicating that the aggregation device is rebooting, receive a first acknowledgement message from the nodes indicating that they will not send any information to the rebooting aggregation device. The aggregation device is then configured to reboot, receive a second message from the nodes indicating the nodes are ready to receive information from the rebooted aggregation device, transmit a second acknowledgement message to the nodes indicating that the rebooted aggregation device has rebooted and is capable of receiving information, and receive information from at least one of the nodes for transmission to at least one other node.

System and method for reducing information loss in an aggregated information handling system

A system and method for handling packets includes receiving the packets at a layer 3 handler in a network device, determining whether the packets are diagnostic packets by examining bit patterns of the packets, determining whether an application in the network device can handle the diagnostic packets when the packets are the diagnostic packets, delivering the diagnostic packets to the application for handling when the application in the network device can handle the diagnostic packets, receiving response packets from the application, and transmitting the response packets. In some embodiments, the bit patterns include a reserved bit of an IP header that is set to one when the packets are the diagnostic packets. In some embodiments, application packets and the diagnostic packets include a same source IP address, a same destination IP address, a same source port, and a same destination port.

System and method for diagnostic packet identification

An information handling system is provided. The information handling system includes a first hypervisor running on a first host and a second hypervisor running on a second host. The first hypervisor managing a first virtual switch, and the second hypervisor managing a second virtual switch. The information handling system also includes a plurality of virtual machines (VMs), including a first VM, which is part of a first tenant, running on the first host, and a second VM, part of a second tenant, running on the second host. The first virtual switch has a mapping in memory that maps a customer-specific multicast IP address, used by the plurality of VMs to indicate a multicast group that includes VMs on the first and second tenants, to a global multicast IP address used by the first and second hosts.

Systems and methods for providing multicast routing in an overlay network

An information handling system is provided. The information handling system includes systems and methods for implementing a multi-chassis link aggregation group (MLAG) in a network. This may be achieved by connecting at least two switches to a plurality of servers, with at least one logical bridging device and at least one MLAG configured in between the network and the plurality of servers. The at least one logical bridging device may be associated with the at least one MLAG. The system may include at least one MLAG per logical bridging device, but may include more MLAGs than logical bridging devices.

Method and system for implementing a multi-chassis link aggregation group in a network

A switch IHS stacking system includes a plurality of switch IHSs. A least one first switch IHS includes a first processing system and at least one second switch IHS includes a second processing system that is different from the first processing system. A stacking engine is located on each of the plurality of switch IHSs. Following the coupling of the plurality of switch IHSs into a stack and in response to the startup of the plurality of switch IHSs, the each of the stacking engines may exchange capability information with each of the plurality of switch IHSs and determine a control plane processing system affinity and a data plane processing system affinity for each of the plurality of switch IHSs. The stacking engines may then determine a master switch IHS for the stack that has the highest control plane processing system affinity and data plane processing system affinity.

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Tamil Nadu, India

Pathangi Narasimhan Janardhanan