Dynamic fabric systems and methods are disclosed for providing connections between endpoints of a communication network. An exemplary dynamic fabric system can include backplane lanes, a dynamic fabric device, and a control device. The dynamic fabric device can include local fabric lanes and a network interface device configurable to communicatively connect the local fabric lanes to a network. The dynamic fabric device can also include a local switch configurable forward messages to backplane lanes and an interconnect configurable to statically connect local fabric lanes and corresponding backplane lanes. The dynamic fabric device can also include a controller configurable to create or break these static connections. The control device can provide instructions to the dynamic fabric device to create or break the static connections based on changes in the number of active dynamic fabric devices installed in the dynamic fabric system.

A system includes a host processor, which has a host memory and is coupled to store data in a non-volatile memory in accordance with a storage protocol. A network interface controller (NIC) receives data packets conveyed over a packet communication network from peer computers containing, in payloads of the data packets, data records that encode data in accordance with the storage protocol for storage in the non-volatile memory. The NIC processes the data records in the data packets that are received in order in each flow from a peer computer and extracts and writes the data to the host memory, and when a data packet arrives out of order, writes the data packet to the host memory without extracting the data and processes the data packets in the flow so as to recover context information for use in processing the data records in subsequent data packets in the flow.

Packet forwarding methods, apparatuses, devices, and systems are disclosed. An example packet forwarding system includes a target virtual machine, a virtual switch and a network card device, wherein: the target virtual machine is configured to send a first packet to the virtual switch; the virtual switch is configured to add input port information to the first packet to obtain a second packet after receiving the first packet sent by the target virtual machine, and forward the second packet to the network card device; and the network card device is configured to determine a corresponding first forwarding rule based on the input port information included in the second packet in response to receiving the second packet sent by the virtual switch, and perform forwarding processing on the second packet based on the first forwarding rule.

A failure at a first port of the controller node is detected, where the first port is initially assigned a first port identifier and is associated with a logical path through a communications fabric between the first port and a port at a host device. In response to detecting the failure, the first port identifier is assigned to a second port to cause the logical path to be associated with the second port. In response to detecting resolution of the failure, a probe identifier is assigned to the first port. Using the probe identifier, a health of network infrastructure between the first port and the host device is checked. In response to the checking, the first port identifier is assigned to the first port to cause failback of the logical path to the first port.

An asynchronous switching system and method for processing data streams, the system and method utilizing one or more buffers for cleaning up an output of a dirty switch.

A method is implemented by a network device for improving availability of network component using multi-chassis redundancy by efficiently re-routing data traffic intended for the network component in the event of a link or node failure. The network device is in a set of network devices hosting the network component each network device in the set of network devices having a shared cluster identifier and a separate node identifier. The set of network devices hosting the network component share a virtual internet protocol address.

A novel and efficient method is described that creates a monolithic high capacity Packet Engine (PE) by connecting N lower capacity Packet Engines (PEs) via a novel Chip-to-Chip (C2C) interface. The C2C interface is used to perform functions, such as memory bit slicing and to communicate shared information, and enqueue/dequeue operations between individual PEs.

Disclosed herein are methods and apparatuses for processing network traffic by a queuing system which may include: receiving pointers to chunks of memory allocated responsive to receipt of network traffic, the chunks of memory each including a portion of a queue batch, wherein the queue batch includes a plurality of queue requests; generating a data structure including the pointers and a reference count; assigning the queue request to a second core; generating a first structured message for the first queue request; and storing the first structured message in a structured message passing queue associated with the second core, wherein a second processing thread associated with the second core, responsive to receiving the structured message, processes the first queue request by retrieving the first queue request from at least one of the chunks of memory.

Systems and methods are disclosed for effectuating control-plane changes at increased speeds to protect a network in which switching operations are performed. Operations to effectuate control-plane changes in the network can be divided between software and more-rapid, dedicated hardware within a line card. Examples of operations reserved to hardware implementation can include blocking and unblocking of ports, flushing of learned entries from switch tables, and coordination of control-plane changes through the generation of messages sent between nodes, and also between line cards of a node. Determinations about the need for hardware-driven, control-plane changes may be made based on events occurring in the network in accordance with any of a number of different network protection protocols. The protocol may be implemented in a state machine and the software may determine the state of the hardware through a master/slave relationship.

A Make-Before-Break (MBB) method, in a node operating in a network with a control plane, decoupling the control plane from a data plane, includes, for a connection operating on a path in the network, determining a reserved connection on a new path, through the control plane, wherein the reserved connection has zero bandwidth; signaling the reserved connection on the new path; creating the reserved connection in the control plane while suspending implementation in the data plane due to the zero bandwidth; and releasing the connection on the path and modifying the reserved connection on the new path to establish the connection on the new path.