Pluris, Inc.

Russ Tuck

David A Skirmont

Puneet Agarwal

Jeff Cuppett

A multicast engine is provided in plurality within a router for replicating and/or modifying packets identified as multicast packets. In preferred embodiments the engine is integrated with one or more ports of a router, particularly with one or more ports of fabric cards. In one implementation the multicast engine is associated with a table having instructions for replicating or modifying multicast packets received, and forwarding the packets accordingly.

Apparatus and methods for efficient multicasting of data packets

A line card for a data packet router interfaces to a high-speed standard data link, and has a first portion interfacing to the router and having a plurality of slower ports, and a second portion having a framer compatible with and coupled to the data link. The framer is coupled through an ingress and an egress data path between the framer and the slower ports, each with separate ingress buffers and egress buffers for each port. An interface control circuit controls data packet transfers between the slower ports and the framer in both directions. In a preferred embodiment a function is used by the control circuit to map packets from the link to the ports, using keys extracted from the incoming packets. For an IP packet the key is the source address, destination address (SA/DA)pair, which constrains packets for same IP conversations to be routed by the same path.

Method and apparatus for mapping data packets between lines of differing capacity at a router interface

A method for routing a packet received in a packet router is taught, the method comprising the steps of selecting a logical interface having multiple physical ports as a destination for the packet, processing any one or more addresses or labels of the packet and other packets received by a common function, producing thereby results unique to the packets in which the addresses and labels processed differ, (c) mapping the physical ports at the destination to the unique results produced by processing the addresses or labels of packets, and (d) routing the data packet according to the mapping. Weighting is applied to physical ports in the mapping, the weighting reflecting different transmission capacities of the ports. Apparatus for practicing the invention is taught as well.

Method and apparatus for load apportionment among physical interfaces in data routers

A line card for a data packet router interfaces to a high-speed standard data link, and has a first portion interfacing to the router and having a plurality of slower ports, and a second portion having a framer compatible with and coupled to the data link. The framer is coupled through an ingress and an egress data path between the framer and the slower ports, each with separate ingress buffers and egress buffers for each port. An interface control circuit controls data packet transfers between the slower ports and the framer in both directions. In a preferred embodiment a function is used by the control circuit to map packets from the link to the ports, using keys extracted from the incoming packets. For an IP packet the key is the source address, destination address (SA/DA) pair, which constrains packets for same IP conversations to be routed by the same path.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Russ Tuck