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.

A communication system includes a control device configured to calculate a packet forwarding path and set a flow based on the packet forwarding path in a node, and a plurality of nodes configured to forward a received packet based on a flow set by the control device. The control device, when receiving a detour instruction, calculates a new packet forwarding path which detours a detour target node and sets a flow based on the new packet forwarding path in the plurality of nodes on the new packet forwarding path.

An autonomous network and a corresponding routing method include determining routing paths by a controller, and providing the determined routing paths to a data packet processor located remotely from the controller. The data packet processor routes outgoing data packets, based on information from the controller, through a plurality of switches remotely from the data packet processor. Each switch includes a plurality of network interfaces. For an outgoing data packet, the data packet processor determines a network interface over which to transmit the data packet, and adds an indication of the determined network interface in a header of the data packet. The data packet processor forwards the modified data packet to the switch including the determined network interface. The switch identifies the network interface based on the indication, and transmits the outgoing data packet over the identified network interface.

In one example, a plurality of network devices forming an Internet protocol (IP) fabric includes first, second, third, and fourth network devices. The first network device includes a plurality of network interfaces communicatively coupled to at least the third and fourth network devices of the plurality of network devices, which are between the first network device and the second network device. The first network device also includes one or more hardware-based processors configured to determine available bandwidths for the third network device and the fourth network device toward the second network device, determine a ratio between the available bandwidths for the third and fourth network devices, and forward data (e.g., packets or bytes) toward the second network device such that a ratio between amounts of the data forwarded to the third and fourth network devices corresponds to the ratio between the available bandwidths.

A method for resolving split conditions in a port-extended network comprises receiving first information indicative of a first MAC address of a first controller on a first fabric link and second information indicative of a second MAC address of a second controller on a second fabric link. The method may also include determining that the first MAC address differs from the second MAC address and responsively determining that one of the first MAC address or the second MAC address was previously associated with a primary controller of the port-extended network. One of the first controller or the second controller is designated as the primary controller of the port-extended network based on the determination that one of the first MAC address or the second MAC address was previously associated with the primary controller.

Method of and a compiler for controlling a network based on a logical network model. The compiler determines physical and/or virtual resources, comprising of physical nodes and physical links, against which the logical model can be compiled. The network has known physical nodes, unknown physical nodes and logical nodes. The known physical nodes are “physical nodes” which are existing or still to be setup (virtual) nodes in the network. The known physical nodes are interconnected by physical links in accordance with a physical network layout. The logical network model has logical nodes indicated with a logical node name which refers to at least one known physical node or one unknown physical node in the network. The method uses a depth-mapping relation defining how the logical nodes are mapped to the known physical nodes and the unknown physical nodes. The term “unknown physical node” is used to define an imaginary physical node to which logical nodes can be mapped through depth-mappings and which are to be substituted by a physical node of the network of which the physical node name is stored. The method includes creating logical links between the logical nodes in dependence on the paths between the known physical nodes and/or the unknown physical nodes and on the depth-mapping relation. Known physical nodes are determined for unknown physical nodes and known physical paths are determined for unknown physical paths between unknown physical nodes by performing a search. The method uses edge-relationships between logical link, logical path, physical link, physical path and depth-mapping relations. Logical paths in the logical network are transformed into a physical path comprising of physical links between the physical nodes through recursive calculation and forwarding instructions are created for the physical nodes, in dependence on the edge-relationships and point-of-attachment names between physical links and physical nodes.

The disclosed embodiments provide a system for operating a switch fabric. During operation, the system identifies network traffic for transmission between two access switches in a switch fabric. Next, the system selects a subset of the network traffic for forwarding on an expedited fabric path comprising a physical link between the two access switches that isolated from other physical links in the switch fabric. Next, the system forwards the subset of the network traffic on the expedited fabric path.

Aspects of the disclosure involve a source node, having some predetermined knowledge of the optical network generating a list of nodes and/or optical links between nodes that form a route in the optical network from the source node to the destination node. The nodes in the optical network do not necessarily need to know the entire route from source node to destination node. Each node simply decodes the control information identifying the next hop in the route towards the destination node. By utilizing the decoded control information identifying the next hop, a switch in the node can be controlled to route the optical signal including the payload and some or all of the control information onto the next optical link toward the destination node.

Novel tools and techniques are provided for implementing network experience shifting, and, in particular embodiments, using either a roaming or portable hypervisor associated with a user or a local hypervisor unassociated with the user. In some embodiments, a network node in a first network might receive, via a first network access device in a second network, a request from a user device to establish roaming network access, and might authenticate a user associated with the user device, the user being unassociated with the first network access device. Based on a determination that the user is authorized to access data, content, profiles, and/or software applications that are accessible via a second network access device, the network node might establish a secure private connection through a hypervisor or container communicatively coupled to the first network access device to provide the user with access to her data, content, profiles, and/or software applications.

In one embodiment, a method includes creating a catalog of service function (“SF”) profiles, wherein each of the profiles is associated with an SF and indicates a type of the associated SF; storing the catalog of SF profiles in a memory device of a service controller associated with the DVS; creating a service profile group template (“SPGT”) that includes at least one SF profile from the catalog of SF profiles, wherein the SPGT includes a service chain definition identifying at least one service chain comprising the SF associated with the at least one SF profile to be executed in connection with a service path and at least one policy for classifying traffic to the at least one service chain; deploying a first SPG instance based on the SPGT; and deploying an additional SPG instance based on the SPGT in accordance with a scaling policy included in the SPGT.