Cisco Technology, Inc.

Rajesh Bhandari

Samar Sharma

Sanjaya Kumar

Fabio Rodolfo Maino

Kalyan Ghosh

Praveen Jain

Wilson Kok

Padmanabha Nallur

Prabesh Babu Nanjundaiah

Shankar Subramanian

Shankar Subramaniam

The disclosed embodiments support improvements in network performance in networks such as storage area networks. This is particularly important in networks such as those implementing virtualization. These improvements, therefore, support improved mechanisms for performing processing in network devices such as switches, routers, or hosts. These improvements include various different mechanisms which may be used separately or in combination with one another. These mechanisms include methods and apparatus for processing traffic in an arbitrated loop, performing striping to support fairness and/or loop tenancy, performing configuration of network devices such as switches to enable virtualization to be performed closest to the storage device (e.g., disk), ascertaining a CPU efficiency that quantifies the impact of virtualization on a processor, and configuring or accessing a striped volume to account for metadata stored in each storage partition.

Network based virtualization performance

Techniques for selecting authentication roles when establishing a link between devices in a secure network are provided. By assigning role levels to devices, devices may be more likely to assume a preferred role when establishing a link. For example, during a negotiation process, each device may establish a timer value based on their role level. Each device may initiate a timer with the timer value and, the device whose timer value expires first may assume a role as authenticator.

Role determination for network devices

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for detecting anomalies in a storage area network (SAN). Provided are one or more anomaly type(s) and corresponding actions to be performed when the one or more anomaly types are detected. Traffic in the SAN is then inspected in order to detect the one or more provided anomaly type(s). When a one of the provided one or more anomaly type(s) is detected, one or more of the corresponding action(s) is performed. The provided anomaly type(s) may include one or more of the following: a read or write access pattern anomaly, excessive login or control requests, a bandwidth usage anomaly, a configuration anomaly, and a hardware anomaly. The provided corresponding actions may include logging and/or publishing the detected anomaly, enabling capture of the detected anomaly by an analysis device, re-authentication of a host that is responsible for the anomaly, disable access control for a host that is responsible for the anomaly, rate control of an anomalous link, and shut down of an anomalous link.

Anomaly detection for storage traffic in a data center

Embodiments of the invention support improvements in network performance in networks such as storage area networks. This is particularly important in networks such as those implementing virtualization. These improvements, therefore, support improved mechanisms for performing processing in network devices such as switches, routers, or hosts. These improvements include various different mechanisms which may be used separately or in combination with one another. These mechanisms include methods and apparatus for processing traffic in an arbitrated loop, performing striping to support fairness and/or loop tenancy, performing configuration of network devices such as switches to enable virtualization to be performed closest to the storage device (e.g., disk), ascertaining a CPU efficiency that quantifies the impact of virtualization on a processor, and configuring or accessing a striped volume to account for metadata stored in each storage partition.

Methods and apparatus for improving network based virtualization performance

According to the present invention, methods and apparatus are provided to allow efficient and effective aggregation of ports into port channels in a fiber channel network. A local fiber channel switch can automatically identify compatible ports and initiate exchange sequences with a remote fiber channel switch to aggregate ports into port channels. Ports can be aggregated synchronously to allow consistent generation of port channel map tables.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Rajesh Bhandari