Data switching using soft configuration
View Patent ↗Network data switching comprises receiving a cell, associating the cell with a destination port, selecting an egress link that has been soft configured to be associated with the destination port, and switching the cell to the selected egress link. A network switch comprises an ingress link configured to receive a cell and a switch circuit coupled to the ingress link, configured to associate the cell with a destination port, to select an egress link that has been soft configured to be associated with the destination port, and to switch the cell to the egress link.
1. A method of switching network data, comprising:
receiving a cell;
associating the cell with a destination port;
selecting an egress link that has been soft configured to be associated with the destination port;
switching the cell to the selected egress link;
configuring an arbitrary number of egress links, including the selected egress link, to be associated with the destination port;
wherein said arbitrary number of egress links comprise a subset of the egress links available on a switch device, each of said arbitrary number of egress links has a corresponding ingress link, each egress link/ingress link pair comprises a bidirectional connection from a fabric access node to the switch device, and each of said arbitrary number of egress links is associated with a switch plane that is independent of the respective switch planes associated with each of the other of said arbitrary number of egress links;
whereby the switch device is virtualized to provide to the fabric access node an arbitrary number of switch planes.
2. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , further comprising selecting an ingress link that has been soft configured to service a source port associated with the cell.
3. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , wherein selecting the egress link includes looking up the egress port in a mapping table.
4. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , wherein selecting the egress link includes looking up the egress link in a mapping table based at least in part on the destination port.
5. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , wherein selecting an egress link includes looking up the selected egress link in a mapping table based at least in part on an ingress link associated with the cell.
6. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , wherein the destination port comprises a first destination port and the selected egress link may be reconfigured to be associated with a destination port other than the first destination port.
7. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , wherein the destination port is a first destination port, and the egress link is reconfigurable to be associated with a destination port other than the first destination port by changing a table entry.
8. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , wherein the egress link is one of a plurality of links that have been bundled to service the destination port.
9. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , further comprising configuring the selected egress link to be associated with the destination port.
10. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , further comprising receiving an indication that one of said arbitrary number of egress links has become unavailable and continuing to use the remaining available ones of said arbitrary number of egress links to send data to the destination port.
11. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , wherein:
there is a maximum number of available links;
the egress link is one of a number of bundled links that have been bundled to service the destination port;
and the number of bundled links may be soft configured to be any arbitrary number between 1 and the maximum number.
12. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , wherein the egress link is one of a plurality of links that have been bundled to service the destination port and the plurality of links are configured by applying a mapping function.
13. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 12 , wherein the mapping function comprises a table.
14. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 1 , further comprising receiving an indication that the egress link is unavailable.
15. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 14 , further comprising sending back pressure to a source of the cell.
16. A method of switching network data as recited in claim 15 , wherein the backpressure indicates to the source that further data should not be sent to the egress link.
17. A network switch comprising:
an ingress link configured to receive a cell; and
a switch circuit coupled to the ingress link, configured to:
associate the cell with a destination port;
select an egress link that has been soft configured to be associated with the destination port; and
switch the cell to the egress link; wherein:
an arbitrary number of egress links, including the selected egress link, are configurable to be associated with the destination port;
said arbitrary number of egress links comprise a subset of the egress links available on a switch device, each of said arbitrary number of egress links has a corresponding ingress link, each egress link/ingress link pair comprises a bidirectional connection from a fabric access node to the switch device, and each of said arbitrary number of egress links is associated with a switch plane that is independent of the respective switch planes associated with each of the other of said arbitrary number of egress links;
whereby the switch device is virtualized to provide to the fabric access node an arbitrary number of switch planes.
18. A computer program product for switching network data, the computer program product being embodied in a computer readable medium and comprising computer instructions for:
receiving a cell;
associating the cell with a destination port;
selecting an egress link that has been soft configured to be associated with the destination port; and
switching the cell to the selected egress link; wherein
an arbitrary number of egress links, including the selected egress link, are configurable to be associated with the destination port;
wherein said arbitrary number of egress links comprise a subset of the egress links available on a switch device, each of said arbitrary number of egress links has a corresponding ingress link, each egress link/ingress link pair comprises a bidirectional connection from a fabric access node to the switch device, and each of said arbitrary number of egress links is associated with a switch plane that is independent of the respective switch planes associated with each of the other of said arbitrary number of egress links;
whereby the switch device is virtualized to provide to the fabric access node an arbitrary number of switch planes.