Cisco Technology, Inc.

Shriram Velaga

Samar Sharma

Michael R Smith

Roger Antoine Karam

Mark Alan Bakke

Umesh Mahajan

Chandramouli Radhakrishnan

Saravanakumar Rajendran

Karl S Nakamura

Paul Harry Gleichauf

Paul Fazzone

Gopinath Durairaj

Bala Nagesh

Palaniappan Karuppan

Paul Anthony Fazzone

Techniques and a network appliance apparatus are provided herein to extend local area networks (LANs) and storage area networks (SANs) beyond a data center while converging the associated local area network and storage area network host layers. A service flow is received at a device in a network. It is determined if the service flow is associated with storage area network or with local area network traffic. In response to determining that the service flow is storage area network traffic, storage area network extension services are performed with respect to the service flow in order to extend the storage area network on behalf of a remote location. In response to determining that the service flow is local area network traffic, local area network extension services are performed with respect to the service flow in order to extend the local area network on behalf of the remote location.

Network appliance with integrated local area network and storage area network extension services

In a virtual infrastructure, a single appliance is provided that hosts a centralized virtual machine monitor (VMM) control plane to effectively establish a single virtual switch across all virtual machines within one or more clusters of servers, thereby reducing the number of management points for the network administrator and facilitating easier VM migration.

Centralized control plane appliance for virtual infrastructure

An Internet Protocol (IP) telephone operates a communications uplink to a switch based on activity on a separate communications downlink (such as to a personal computer) to conserve power when possible. The IP telephone monitors the communications activity of a link partner on the communications downlink, and when the link partner is present and operating at a relatively high data rate, the IP telephone operates the communications uplink at a correspondingly high data rate to support the communications needs of the IP telephone and the link partner. If the monitoring indicates that the link partner has reduced communications activity (which may include becoming entirely disconnected from the communications downlink), the IP telephone transitions to a second operating condition to operate the communications uplink at a relatively low data rate, with a corresponding decrease in the power required for operation of the communications uplink interface circuitry. By this mechanism, the power required to operate the IP telephony system can be reduced to realize costs savings etc.

Automatic data rate and power adjustment on communications uplink based on communications activity on communications downlink

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Los Altos, CA, United States of America

Shriram Velaga