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:
Dec. 23, 2003
Filed:
Sep. 19, 2002
Gregory L. DeJager, San Jose, CA (US);
James R. Rivers, Saratoga, CA (US);
David H. Yen, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Stewart Findlater, Mountain View, CA (US);
Scott A. Emery, Saratoga, CA (US);
Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
Provided are methods, apparatuses and systems for balancing the load of data transmissions through a port aggregation. The methods and apparatuses of the present invention allocate port assignments based on load, that is, the amount of data being forwarded through each port in the group. The load balancing of the present invention is preferably dynamic, that is, packets from a given stream may be forwarded on different ports depending upon each port's current utilization. When a new port is selected to transmit a particular packet stream, it is done so that the packets cannot be forwarded out of order. This is preferably accomplished by ensuring passage of a period of time sufficient to allow all packets of a given stream to be forwarded by a port before a different port is allocated to transmit packets of the same stream. The invention may be used in a variety of different network environments and speeds, including 10Base-T, 100Base-T, and Gigabit Ethernet, and other network environments.