Large photonic switches can establish optical paths between a large number of inputs and outputs. A distributed control architecture may be used in order to quickly establish the optical paths in large photonic switches. The distributed control architecture may provide a hierarchical control by grouping together endpoints, determining switching requirements between the groups and determining switching requirements within the groups.

System and method for supporting flexible partition key (P_Key) mapping in a high performance computing environment. In accordance with an embodiment, when such computer environments comprise more than one subnet and/or forwarding domain that support inter-subnet partitions, the P_Keys comprising such inter-subnet partitions can change across domain boundaries. In such situations, a partition key of a packet can be updated upon entry to a new subnet and/or forwarding domain.

A method of sending data to a switch fabric includes assigning a destination port of an output module to a data packet based on at least one field in a first header of the data packet. A module associated with a first stage of the switch fabric is selected based on at least one field in the first header. A second header is appended to the data packet. The second header includes an identifier associated with the destination port of the output module. The data packet is sent to the module associated with the first stage. The module associated with the first stage is configured to send the data packet to a module associated with a second stage of the switch fabric based on the second header.

During path switching between sidelink (SL) and uplink (UL) for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) message transmission, a path switching layer of a user equipment (UE), which may be located right above a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer of the UE, stores a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) message, which is not transmitted yet on an old path, in a transmission buffer. And then, the path switching layer of the UE re-submits the V2X message stored in the transmission buffer to a lower layer of a new path.

Concepts and technologies are disclosed herein for providing and using a distributed forwarding service. A service request can be received at a computing device and can relate to a distributed forwarding service. The computing device can configure the distributed forwarding service by determining a number of nodes that are to provide the distributed forwarding service and configuring a shared control function to control the nodes. The computing device can trigger instantiation of the distributed forwarding service. Instantiation of the distributed forwarding service can include dedicating a shared incoming switch for the distributed forwarding service, dedicating a shared outgoing switch for the distributed forwarding service, instantiating the nodes, and instantiating the shared control function. The distributed forwarding service can include the shared incoming switch, the shared control function, the nodes, and the shared outgoing switch.

A switch includes a reserved pool of buffers in a shared memory. The reserved pool of buffers is reserved for exclusive use by an egress port. The switch includes pool select logic which selects a free buffer from the reserved pool for storing data received from an ingress port to be forwarded to the egress port. The shared memory also includes a shared pool of buffers. The shared pool of buffers is shared by a plurality of egress ports. The pool select logic selects a free buffer in the shared pool upon detecting no free buffer in the reserved pool. The shared memory may also include a multicast pool of buffers. The multicast pool of buffers is shared by a plurality of egress ports. The pool select logic selects a free buffer in the multicast pool upon detecting an IP Multicast data packet received from an ingress port.

A first set of bits is extracted from a header of a first packet. A second set of bits is extracted from a header of a second packet. The first set of bits and the second set of bits are combined into a combined single data unit representing the first packet and the second packet. The combined single data unit is transferred to a packet processing device. The packet processing device decomposes the single data unit to extract the first set of bits corresponding to the first packet and the second set of bits corresponding to the second packet. A first reduced set of processing operations is performed to process the first packet using the first set of bits corresponding to the first packet. A second reduced set of processing operations is performed to process the second packet using the second set of bits corresponding to the second packet.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for processing information, a forwarding plane device and a control plane device. The method includes: receiving a data packet, and extracting characteristic information of the data packet; searching for context information corresponding to the characteristic information of the data packet; buffering or discarding the data packet if the context information is not found; and sending an event reporting message to a gateway control plane device, wherein the event reporting message carries the characteristic information of the data packet, so that the gateway control plane device acquires the context information corresponding to the characteristic information of the data packet. In this way, the gateway forwarding plane device can acquire context information to the greatest extent under the condition that the context information is lost, thereby ensuring accurate forwarding of the data packet to the greatest extent.

A method for transmitting MAC frames. The method includes receiving, by a first switch in the MLAG domain, a first media access control (MAC) frame from an external device, wherein the external device is directly connected to the first switch, where the MLAG domain consists of the first switch and the second switch. The method further includes making a first determination that the external device is not a singly-connected external device and based on the first determination, encapsulating the first MAC frame in a first VXLAN frame using a first virtual tunnel endpoint (VTEP), where the first VXLAN frame comprises a virtual VTEP Internet Protocol (IP) address, where the virtual VTEP IP address is associated with the MLAG domain. The method further includes transmitting the first VXLAN frame to an IP fabric, where the first switch is directly connected to the IP fabric.

A method, implemented in a packet switch system, for fast interlayer forwarding includes constructing a master Forwarding Information Base (FIB) which associates each of a plurality of packet source addresses with a corresponding member port among a plurality of member ports interconnected by a fabric; and distributing the master FIB to the member ports interconnected by the fabric and to at least one alternate logical port that is not connected to the fabric, wherein the at least one alternate logical port is configured to protect one of the member ports interconnected by the fabric.