Some embodiments of the invention provide a forwarding element that can be configured through in-band data-plane messages from a remote controller that is a physically separate machine from the forwarding element. The forwarding element of some embodiments has data plane circuits that include several configurable message-processing stages, several storage queues, and a data-plane configurator. A set of one or more message-processing stages of the data plane are configured (1) to process configuration messages received by the data plane from the remote controller and (2) to store the configuration messages in a set of one or more storage queues. The data-plane configurator receives the configuration messages stored in the set of storage queues and configures one or more of the configurable message-processing stages based on configuration data in the configuration messages.

Systems and methods accessing remote digital data over a wide area network (WAN) are disclosed. In an embodiment, a network device is disclosed. The network device includes a local area network (LAN) switching fabric physical interface configured to communicate according to a LAN switching fabric protocol, a WAN physical interface configured to communicate according to a WAN protocol, and a fabric extension function configured to map LAN switching fabric interfaces to pseudo-ports, map pseudo-ports to WAN interfaces, and transmit LAN fabric datagrams received at the LAN switching fabric physical interface from the WAN physical interface via a mapped pseudo-port and a corresponding WAN interface.

System and method for supporting node role attributes in a high performance computing environment. In accordance with an embodiment, a node role attribute can comprise a vendor defined subnet management attribute. When a subnet manager attempts to discover a high performance computing environment, such as an InfiniBand subnet, or a switch topology, identifying a topology is quite complex when subnet manager can only observe connectivity, without context behind the connectivity (the roles of the different nodes in the connectivity). However, when a subnet has a node role attribute enabled, the subnet manager can map the interconnect more effectively as it can discover not only the connectivity during the initial sweep, but it can also discover the role of each node discovered, thus leading to a more efficient interconnect discovery.

A storage system is provided. The storage system includes a first storage cluster, the first storage cluster having a first plurality of storage nodes coupled together and a second storage cluster, the second storage cluster having a second plurality of storage nodes coupled together. The system includes an interconnect coupling the first storage cluster and the second storage cluster and a first pathway coupling the interconnect to each storage cluster. The system includes a second pathway, the second pathway coupling at least one fabric module within a chassis to each blade within the chassis.

A SDN orchestration method includes: obtaining a first request for creating a first logical switch; creating a control plane instance of the first logical switch, and sending first configuration information to instruct the first forwarding device to configure the data plane instance of the first logical switch; obtaining a second request for connecting the first logical switch to a first logical router; sending second configuration information to instruct the first forwarding device to configure a first port of the data plane instance of the first logical switch to be communicatively connected to a second port of a data plane instance of the first logical router on the second forwarding device configured with the data plane instance of the first logical router; and sending third configuration information to instruct the second forwarding device to configure the second port to be communicatively connected to the first port.

A retimer device is provided that includes an elasticity buffer, a receiver, and a controller. The elasticity buffer adds or subtracts data in the elasticity buffer to compensate for different bit rates of two devices to be connected over a link, where the retimer is positioned between the two devices on the link. The receiver receives a data stream to be sent between the two devices on the link. The controller determines, from the data stream, a modification to one or more characteristics of the link, and causes size of the elasticity buffer to be changed from a first size to a second size based on the modification.

In a method and a device for detecting anomalies in data in data traffic across a communication network in a vehicle, the device encompasses a plurality of hardware interfaces and a monolithic coupling element designed for transmitting data arriving at one of the hardware interfaces in a data packet via at least one of the hardware interfaces and analyzing the data packet or a copy of the data packet for a detection of anomalies in the data of the communication network or of a subsystem of the communication network connected to one of the hardware interfaces.

A storage system is provided. The storage system includes a first storage cluster, the first storage cluster having a first plurality of storage nodes coupled together and a second storage cluster, the second storage cluster having a second plurality of storage nodes coupled together. The system includes an interconnect coupling the first storage cluster and the second storage cluster and a first pathway coupling the interconnect to each storage cluster. The system includes a second pathway, the second pathway coupling at least one fabric module within a chassis to each blade within the chassis.

In one embodiment, a computer network system, includes a plurality of mesh networks, each mesh network including at least three interconnected respective internal switches with each respective internal switch being connected to each other one of the respective internal switches via a respective internal network connection, and Clos topology network connections connecting the mesh networks in a Clos topology arrangement.

Some embodiments provide a method of providing distributed storage services to a host computer from a network interface card (NIC) of the host computer. At the NIC, the method accesses a set of one or more external storages operating outside of the host computer through a shared port of the NIC that is not only used to access the set of external storages but also for forwarding packets not related to an external storage. In some embodiments, the method accesses the external storage set by using a network fabric storage driver that employs a network fabric storage protocol to access the external storage set. The method presents the external storage as a local storage of the host computer to a set of programs executing on the host computer. In some embodiments, the method presents the local storage by using a storage emulation layer on the NIC to create a local storage construct that presents the set of external storages as a local storage of the host computer.