Alcatel Lucent

Alcatel Canada Inc.

Alcatel-lucent Canada Inc.

Robert Elliott Robotham

Jason T Sterne

Predrag Kostic

Peter Irma August Barri

Denny L Lee

Chad William Kendall

Brent Duckering

Jordan Lu

Gerard Damm

Mustapha Aissaoui

Tom Edward Davis

Bart Joseph Gerard Pauwels

Miroslav Vrana

Jerome Cornet

Olivier Didier Duroyon

Wladyslaw Olesinski

Shay Nahum

Brent Gene Duckering

Thomas Edward Davis

Mustapha Aïssaoui

Robert Nesbitt

Kishor Mistry

Jordan (Jianping) Lu

The invention relates to a telecommunication network having IP packet-supporting capabilities, which includes a load distribution processing function, either centralized or distributed, by means of which a load distribution function may be applied to sets of paths between network nodes or sets of links of network trunks. The load distribution processing function handles different load distribution functions. Each of the different load distribution functions is associated to a different network input unit involved in the load distribution for a set of paths between network nodes or a set of trunk links. The invention also relates to a method of load distribution in a telecommunication network as summarized above.

Method for distributing load over multiple shared resources in a communication network and network applying such a method

A method for packet reordering in a network processor, including the steps of processing packets, dividing the processed packets into a plurality of tiers and reordering the tiers independently from each other and collecting eligible packets from the plurality of tiers in a collector for forwarding. The method further includes the step of during the processing, determining the nominal packet processing time of each packet. The processed packets are divided into the plurality of tiers depending on the nominal packet processing time.

Method and apparatus for packet reordering in a network processor

A method and apparatus for merging a plurality of virtual connections to form a merged virtual connection is presented. As cells for each of the plurality of virtual connections are received, they are buffered into a corresponding plurality of cell buffers, where each virtual connection has a corresponding cell buffer. When enough cells to constitute a complete packet are buffered for a particular virtual connection in its corresponding cell buffer, the identity of that virtual connection is queued into a queue, which may take the form of a linked list. A plurality of linked lists may be included such that differentiation between various virtual connections based on class is possible, where the class division may be based on a number of different factors. Prioritization information for the merged virtual connection is then obtained, where in the case where a plurality of classes are supported, the prioritization information includes class prioritization information. A cell stream for the merged virtual circuit is then generated based on the prioritization information and the virtual connection identities currently stored in the queue structure. The cell stream is generated such that entire packets are included in the cell stream in a continuous manner and no intermingling of cells corresponding to different packets occurs.

Method and apparatus for merging virtual connections

In accordance with at least one embodiment of the present invention, a method and apparatus for scheduling traffic in a communications node is provided. Line cards request communication opportunities from a switch fabric. The switch fabric issues grants for such communication opportunities in response to specific requests. By dynamically adjusting usage of such communication opportunities corresponding to such grants among requests of differing priorities and/or latency criteria, embodiments of the present invention are able to provide increased capacity utilization of switching fabric bandwidth while maximizing adherence to priority requirements and/or latency criteria.

Method and apparatus for request/grant priority scheduling

A method and apparatus for scheduling and servicing events using a calendar structure is described. In accordance with one preferred embodiment of the present invention, a calendar structure is provided to implement work-conserving methods (for example, queuing, such as fair queuing, or, as one specific example, weighted fair queuing (WFQ)). Such a calendar structure preferably provides two slots per tier and uses a temporal pointer based on virtual time. In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention, a calendar structure is provided to implement shaping of flows of information. Such a calendar structure preferably provides one slot per tier and uses a temporal pointer based on real time. For scheduling, a preferred occurrence time at which an event is preferred to occur is calculated. Events having preferred occurrence times farther from a current time value denoted by the temporal pointer are scheduled on a calendar tiers of lower resolution, while events having preferred occurrence times nearer to the current time value denoted by the temporal pointer are scheduled on calendar tiers of higher resolution. For servicing, the events are selected from slots to which the temporal pointer is pointing. If a slot is being used to schedule an event pending servicing, the slot is considered to be an occupied slot. Occupied slots at higher resolution calendar tiers are serviced exhaustively over occupied slots at lower resolution calendar tiers.

Method and apparatus for scheduling and servicing events using a calendar structure

A system and method of scheduling and servicing events in a communications network are described. To provide improved efficiency while maintaining fairness to all traffic a two slot dynamic length Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) calendar is implemented. The two slot calendar can be transformed to provide fine granularity utilizing a hierarchical WFQ scheme.

Two-slot dynamic length WFQ calendar

A method and apparatus for frame-aware and pipelined hierarchical scheduling is described. In accordance with at least one embodiment of the invention, some or all schedulers of a communication node are associated with one or more storage devices that maintain values used by corresponding higher level schedulers to make scheduling decisions. Because of the nature of the scheduling decision flow and the potential to update registers in real-time, the scheduling arrangement can respond almost immediately to changes occurring at the input queues, which allows scheduling to be responsive to differing priorities of incoming cells. The nature of the scheduling decision flow also allows pipelined scheduling, in which scheduling of one or more additional cells can begin before scheduling of a first cell is completed.

Method and apparatus for frame-aware and pipelined hierarchical scheduling

A method for searching entries in a ternary content addressable memory ('TCAM') device for one or more matches to an input, comprising: (a) providing a first portion of the input to the TCAM and receiving a first indication from the TCAM as to whether the first portion matches one or more of the entries in the TCAM; and, (b) if the first indication is negative, providing a second portion of the input combined with a hashed version of the first portion to the TCAM and receiving a second indication from the TCAM as to whether the second portion combined with the hashed version of the first portion matches one or more of the entries in the TCAM.

Method and system for character string searching

A method and apparatus for buffering data units in a communication switch that allows for configurable monitoring of the buffer contents is presented. Such an apparatus includes a context table that stores a plurality of independent group identifiers for each connection. Although the group identifiers may include a partition group identifier and a loss group identifier that is dependent on the partition group identifier, additional group identifiers are included in the context table for each connection that are independent of other group identifiers in the context table. Such a context table may be dynamically reconfigured in order to group connections for buffer monitoring operations related to congestion detection, traffic shaping, and data admission with respect to buffering. When a data unit is received corresponding to a particular connection, the context table is referenced to retrieve the set of group identifiers corresponding to that connection. As a cell is stored in the buffer, count values corresponding to at least some of the group identifiers included in the set of group identifiers for that connection are incremented. Similarly, when data is dequeued from the buffer for forwarding, the set of group identifiers for that particular data unit is determined and the counters corresponding to at least some of those groups are decremented. As such, the count value corresponding to each of the groups can be referenced to determine the number of data units corresponding to that group that are currently stored within the buffer.

Method and apparatus for monitoring buffer contents in a data communication system

An instruction memory shared by a number of processing units has a plurality of individually accessible sections. A software program in the instruction memory is distributed among the memory sections. Sequential parts of the software program are in sequential sections. The software program may have a common portion which is repeated in each of the memory sections. Arbiter logic may control which of the processing units accesses which of the memory sections in each memory access cycle.

Multiprocessor computing device having shared program memory

A method and module for tracking transmission of messages being sent from a transmitting module to a receiving module in a communication device is provided. The method includes the step of (a) receiving a message at the receiving module. The method also includes the step of (b) evaluating the received message to determine whether the received message was received by the receiving module in a proper sequence to a previous message, if any, sent by the transmitting module. The method further includes the step of (c) generating an acknowledgement message from the receiving module to the transmitting module, the acknowledgement message including an indicator, a value of the indicator indicating whether the previous message, if any, transmitted from the transmitting module to the receiving module immediately before the received message was received by the receiving module.

System and method for detecting lost messages transmitted between modules in a communication device

A fast and scalable pattern making engine is presented. The engine represents variations on a Shift-And method capable of matching patterns in data streams having high speed data rates. In one aspect of the invention high speed is achieved by accessing the pattern RAM in parallel. In another aspect, the input is likened to TDM and individual slots or channels are accessed separately. The two aspects can also be combined to provide a scalable and high speed pattern matching engine. The engine is adaptable to streams of known length or more complex expressions such as regular expressions with arbitrary length.

Fast, scalable pattern-matching engine

The present invention provides a system and method for providing a different quality of service to a flow associated with an aggregate flow is provided. For an embodiment, the method comprises scheduling a plurality of data traffic flows in a communication network, the method comprising: (i) scheduling data traffic flows in a first category of data traffic, said first category of data traffic having a first bandwidth capacity associated therewith; (ii) determining whether any portion of said first bandwidth capacity is unused by data traffic flows in said first category of data traffic; and (iii) scheduling data traffic flows in a second category of data traffic providing said unused portion of said first bandwidth capacity for use for said data traffic in said second category.

System and method for scheduling data traffic flows for a communication device

A multi-protocol switch that supports both ATM and IP traffic and method for use is presented. The multi-protocol switch associates certain input connections, as identified by virtual path identifier/virtual connection identifier (VPI/VCI), with either IP or ATM traffic. When the connection identifier for a cell received indicates that the cell is an ATM cell, the multi-protocol switch forwards the cell through the switch, where the forwarding is based on the connection identifier for the cell. If the connection identifier for a cell indicates that the cell is IP traffic, the cell is stored with other cells included in the IP packet to which the cells correspond within the ingress line card of the switch. The destination address included in the packet is used to determine a forwarding decision for the cells included in the packet. After at least partial reassembly, the packet is segmented and forwarded through the switch based on the forwarding decision determined from the destination address.

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Ottawa, Canada

Robert Elliott Robotham