An apparatus includes a low noise amplifier (LNA) multiplexer configured to receive a plurality of radio frequency (RF) signals at a plurality of input terminals and to combine the plurality of RF signals into a combined RF signal that is output at an output terminal. The LNA multiplexer includes a plurality of input signal paths, and each input signal path is coupleable to a respective input terminal of the plurality of input terminals and is configured to receive a respective RF signal of the plurality of RF signals. The apparatus further includes an LNA demultiplexer configured to receive the combined RF signal at an input port coupled to the output terminal and to distribute the combined RF signal to a plurality of output ports, each output port of the plurality of output ports configured to output the combined RF signal to a respective downconverter of a plurality of downconverters.

ECMP routing is carried out in fabric of network entities by representing valid destinations and invalid destinations in a group of the entities by a member vector. The order of the elements in the member vector is permuted and fanned out. A portion of the elements in the fanned out vector is pseudo-randomly masked. A flow of packets is transmitted to the first valid destination in the masked member vector.

A method is provided in one embodiment and includes receiving at a network element an encapsulated packet and determining whether both an ECMP/LAG Existing (“ele”) flag and an Entropy Label Capability (“elc”) flag are set for an egress node of the packet in a Label Distribution Protocol (“LDP”) database of the network element. If both the ele and elc flags are set for the egress node of the packet in the LDP database, the method further includes determining whether the network element is an ingress node for the packet and, if the network element is the ingress node for the packet, pushing an Entropy Label (“EL”) and an Entropy Label Indicator (“ELI”) onto an MPLS stack of the packet.

Each router in a group of routers (110R.2, 110R.3) includes an interface (P4) assigned a common virtual address for multicast (VAM). The common VAM is advertised in router advertisings for multicast traffic; other addresses are advertised for unicast. The member routers in the group share multicast forwarding databases. Increased throughput is therefore provided for multicast traffic without traffic replication. Any router in the group can service requests from end-point sources and receivers of multicast traffic, e.g. requests to join or leave a multicast group, or requests presented as multicast packets for forwarding to a multicast group.

Aspects of the disclosure provide a method for collecting distributed counter values in a packet-switched system having multiple distributed packet processors. The method includes receiving a probe packet at a packet processor, storing a counter value corresponding to a flow processed by the packet processor for subsequent delivery to a management controller, and forwarding the probe packet to a next packet processor. The next packet processor stores a counter value of the next packet processor for subsequent delivery to the management controller.

At least some embodiments of invention provide a method, device and system for link management in a Virtual Machine (VM) environment. The method includes: a heartbeat handshake link is established with a VM. After the heartbeat handshake link is successfully established, Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) state information of a Physical Function (PF) of a plurality of a Network Interface Cards (NICs) is acquired. The LACP state information is sent to the VM through the heartbeat handshake link.

A packet forwarding system includes: a plurality of first relay apparatuses connected to one another; a plurality of second relay apparatuses that include a plurality of ports and that are connected to the plurality of first relay apparatuses; and a control apparatus that configures a plurality of trunks, each serving as a virtual logical link, by using a plurality of physical links between the first relay apparatuses and the second relay apparatuses. The control apparatus determines a designated port for each of the plurality of trunks from among constituent ports of the each trunk. When one of the plurality of first relay apparatuses receives a predetermined control target packet from one of the plurality of second relay apparatuses, the control apparatus causes the plurality of first relay apparatuses to transmit the predetermined control target packet via a first relay apparatus including a designated port for one of the plurality of trunks, to which a port of the one first relay apparatus receiving the predetermined control target packet belongs.

A packet forwarding network may include switches that forward network traffic between end hosts that are coupled to the forwarding network. An analysis network may be connected to the forwarding network. A controller may control the switches in the forwarding network to implement desired forwarding paths. The controller may configure the switches to form switch port groups. The controller may identify a port group that is connected to the analysis network. The controller may select a subset of the forwarded packets and may control selected switches to copy the subset to the identified port group. The controller may establish network tunnels between the switches and the port group. In this way, the controller may control the switches to perform efficient traffic monitoring regardless of the location on the forwarding network at which the traffic monitoring network is connected and without interfering with normal packet forwarding operations through the forwarding network.

A method, apparatus and computer readable medium for reducing traffic loss when bringing up a switch within a multi chassis switch cluster without using dedicated intra cluster links is presented. A first network device in a cluster discovers at least one path to a second network device in the cluster, wherein the cluster utilizes at least one virtual IST between the first network device and the second network device. The first network device starts an Inter Switch Trunk (IST) synchronization process with the second network device. The first network device installs redirection rules, wherein the redirection rules are used for datapath traffic and are not used for control channel traffic. The first network device determines that the IST synchronization process between the first network device and the second network device has completed, and removes the redirection rules.

The objective of the invention is to enable sharing, between layers in a network in which the layers are used to perform communications, resource information and information required for using paths. A network control system includes: a lower layer information storage unit, a lower layer control information conversion unit, an upper layer information storage unit, an upper layer control information conversion unit, an integrated layer information storage unit and a layer integration unit. The layer integration unit integrates, as virtual links, the information of flows, which are representative of communications among terminals in the lower layer, with the network information of the upper layer, thereby constituting the network information of the integrated layer. Further, the layer integration unit performs reciprocal exchanges of network information among the integrated layer information storage unit, the lower layer information storage unit and the upper layer information storage unit, said reciprocal exchanges including a process of giving, as the attribute information of the ports of the upper layer, label information required for using the virtual link provided by the lower layer.