Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.

Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Limited

Raju Shekarappa

Mythilikanth Raman

Suresh Vobbilisetty

Phanidhar Koganti

Pankaj K Jha

Mahesh K Pujara

Vardarajan Venkatesh

Wei-Chiuan Chen

Mary Manohar

Gangadhar Vegesana

One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch in a network of interconnected switches. The switch includes a storage device, a hardware management apparatus, and a layer-2 management apparatus. The storage device stores a forwarding table, which includes an entry comprising a MAC address and an egress port for the MAC address. The hardware management apparatus determines whether a destination MAC address of a frame is present in a hardware table in memory of the switch. The layer-2 management apparatus, in response to a determination that the destination MAC address is not present in the hardware table, looks up a first entry comprising the destination MAC address in the forwarding table, and creates a second entry comprising the destination MAC address in the hardware table based on the first entry.

Progressive MAC address learning

One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch includes an ownership management mechanism and a notification mechanism. The ownership management mechanism maintains a local ownership association between the switch, and a medium access control (MAC) address learned at the switch and terminates the local ownership association for the MAC address. The notification mechanism generates a first notification indicating the local ownership association and a second notification indicating the termination of the local ownership association.

Clearing forwarding entries dynamically and ensuring consistency of tables across ethernet fabric switch

Growing community of inventors

Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Raju Shekarappa