Ciena Corporation

Cyan, Inc.

Turin Networks

Cyan Optics, Inc.

Stephen John West

Scott Pradels

Stephen S Greer

Lei Jin

Shahzad Ali

Hui Zhang

Bob Reissfelder

Shuangxia Sarah Zhu

Yantao Jia

Dirk Brandis

Colin J Wilson

A network element of a transport network has three fabrics housed within a single shelf of a telco rack, namely a packet fabric, an electrical fabric and an optical fabric. A stream of traffic including a plurality of lambdas is received at a trunk interface of such a shelf. The optical fabric in the shelf performs optical switching on the stream to replace a first lambda in the stream with a second lambda. The first lambda is converted within the shelf into an electrical signal. Also within the shelf, first frames are recovered from the electrical signal. The packet fabric in the shelf is used to perform packet switching on the first frames to generate a flow of second frames. The flow of second frames is transmitted at a client interface of the shelf.

Method of processing traffic in a node in a transport network with a network controller

Network controller, a multi-fabric shelf and, a method of processing traffic in a transport network

Heat dissipating electronic components and circuitry in a communication chassis are cooled by moving air at least through a midplane, between two groups of channels that are perpendicularly oriented relative to one another. In an illustrative embodiment, channels of one group are oriented vertically while channels of another group are oriented horizontally. Each channel, regardless of whether it is vertical or horizontal, is defined by space in the chassis between adjacent circuit boards. Circuit boards on one side of the midplane are electrically connected to circuit boards on the other side of the midplane by orthogonal connectors on the midplane. The midplane additionally has openings that enable movement of air between vertically-oriented channels and horizontally-oriented channels. Circuit boards of the two orientations are cooled by increasing air pressure in vertically-oriented channels or by decreasing air pressure in horizontally-oriented channels or both, depending on the embodiment.

Cooling a chassis by moving air through a midplane between two sets of channels oriented laterally relative to one another

Method of processing traffic in a transport network

Heat dissipating electronic components and circuitry in a communication chassis are cooled by moving air at least through a midplane, between two groups of channels that are laterally oriented relative to one another. In an illustrative embodiment, channels of one group are oriented vertically while channels of another group are oriented horizontally. Each channel, regardless of whether it is vertical or horizontal, is defined by space in the chassis between adjacent circuit boards. Circuit boards on one side of the midplane are electrically connected to circuit boards on the other side of the midplane by orthogonal connectors on the midplane. The midplane additionally has openings that enable movement of air between vertically-oriented channels and horizontally-oriented channels. Circuit boards of the two orientations are cooled by increasing air pressure in vertically-oriented channels or by decreasing air pressure in horizontally-oriented channels or both, depending on the embodiment.

A shelf of communication equipment provides frontal illumination of a face plate of the shelf. Specifically, a shelf in a rack in a communication network includes a face plate and a bezel. The face plate has a first exterior surface that carries a legend. The bezel forms a second exterior surface extending in a predetermined direction transverse to the first exterior surface. For example, if the first exterior surface is vertical, the second exterior surface is horizontal and overhangs the first exterior surface. During operation, electromagnetic radiation generated by a source enclosed by the bezel exits through the second exterior surface and directly illuminates at least the legend, and optionally also illuminates a electronic device adjacent to the legend, such as an LED or a jack, if such a device is present on the first exterior surface.

Light source in chassis to provide frontal illumination of a faceplate on the chassis

A network element of a transport network has three fabrics housed within a single shelf of a telco rack, namely a packet fabric, an electrical fabric and an optical fabric. The shelf also includes inter-fabric circuitry, to bridge between the fabrics, e.g. packet-electrical and/or electrical-optical and/or packet-optical. The inter-fabric circuitries switchably transmit packets across fabrics in intermediate nodes of the transport network. The single shelf of some embodiments has a wall ('midplane') between a rear region that holds the three fabrics and a front region that holds inter-fabric circuitry, and external interfaces to optical trunks and/or packet services and/or optical tributaries.

Multi-fabric shelf for a transport network

An arriving cell is admitted when a flow occupancy level is less than a flow minimum threshold. When the flow occupancy level is not less than the flow minimum threshold, a drop probability based on per-class thresholds is applied to determine if the arriving is to be rejected. When the arriving cell is not to be rejected after applying the drop probability based on the per-class thresholds, a drop probability based on per-flow thresholds is applied.

Discard policy method and apparatus

A method for selecting packets comprises pipelining execution of packet selection processes so that execution of each of the packet selection processes occurs at different levels of a scheduling hierarchy. At least two different packets are selected at two different times in response to execution of the packet selection processes.

Method and system for pipelining packet selection

An ingress is coupled with the switch fabric to send flows of data across the switch fabric. Each of the flows of data is associated with a flow identification information and a priority level. An egress is coupled with the switch fabric to receive the flows of data from the ingress. The egress is configured to send one or more flow control messages to the ingress to control a pace that the ingress sends the flows of data to the egress. Each of the flow control messages includes one or more of a flow identification information, an egress space availability information and a new priority level for a flow.

Growing community of inventors

Petaluma, CA, United States of America

Stephen John West