The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 08, 1998
Filed:
Dec. 21, 1995
David A Kranzler, Belmont, CA (US);
Wen-Tsung Tang, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Edwin Ibe, San Jose, CA (US);
3 Com Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
In a backplane architecture for a logical stackable Ethernet repeater for an Ethernet network having a plurality of stackable repeater modules, each one of the stackable repeater modules being connectable via bus-type signal lines to one another for communicating packets via bus-type signal lines, and each one of said stackable repeater modules including a plurality of ports for connection to stations, a method is provided for communicating management information wherein a management module collects information about packets on the backplane from repeater modules, and the repeater modules transmit packet information only via bus-type signal lines. In a specific embodiment, transmitting comprises appending after each packet at each source port of each repeater module an information footer having a select number of information units, and conveying each packet with the information footer on the bus-type signal lines. The management module reads the information footer from the bus-type signal lines to collect information about the source of each packet and compiles statistical information from direct interpretation of each packet.