POWER OVER ETHERNET (POE) POWERED NETWORK ADAPTER INCORPORATING OPEN VSWITCH (OVS) AND FABRIC ATTACH (FA) CAPABILITIES

摘要

A POE powered network adapter incorporating OVS and FA capabilities includes one or more Ethernet ports. The device derives power from an external source over one of the Ethernet ports and delivers power over at least one other Ethernet port or ports to attached devices. Further, the device does not use a fan for cooling and uses an Open Flow compliant software based Datapath implementation. The OF compliant software based Datapath implementation is OVS. The device could also run proprietary vendor software. The device implements the Fabric Attach/Auto Attach (FA/AA) client/proxy capabilities. Additionally, embodiments include secure boot technologies to ensure that the only operational images that can be loaded on these device(s) are the ones that are approved by the vendor of the equipment. Additionally, coupling of the device to a specified device is supported wherein communication between said device and any other device is rejected.

主权项

1. A network edge device comprising:
a memory; a processor; a communications interface; an interconnection mechanism coupling the memory, the processor and the communications interface; and wherein the memory is encoded with an application providing Power Over Ethernet (POE) powered network adapter incorporating Open VSwitch (OVS) and Fabric Attach (FA) capabilities, that when performed on the processor, provides a process for processing information, the process causing the computer system to perform the operations of: deriving power from an external source over at least one Ethernet port; delivering power over at least one other Ethernet port to an attached device; and using an Open Flow (OF) compliant software based Datapath implementation.