Protocol translation method and bridge device for switched telecommunication and computing platforms

摘要

A computing and communication architecture utilizes a serial protocol based switched fabric among circuit cards housed in packaging arrangement. In one embodiment, each circuit card connected to the serial protocol based switched fabric in the packaging arrangement is provided with a protocol processor that enables all of the circuit cards to efficiently provide packet-based serial self-clocked communications at line speed. As a result, it is not necessary to arrange the circuit cards in a hierarchical manner in order to address the problems of switch blocking and related traffic congestion issues that would otherwise limit the implementation of the serial protocol based backplane arrangement for housing circuit cards.

主权项

1. A method for emulating a first data communication protocol behavior over a second serial data communication protocol switching fabric comprising:
encapsulating a first data communication protocol packet within a second serial data communication protocol packet to provide a second serial data communication protocol encapsulated first data communication protocol packet; routing the second serial data communication protocol encapsulated first data communication protocol packet within the second serial data communication protocol switching fabric via information included within the second serial data communication protocol packet; and wherein the first data communication protocol packet conforms to a first data communication protocol architecture, and the second serial data communication protocol packet conforms to a second serial data communication protocol architecture, wherein the first data communication protocol architecture comprises a plurality of addressable ports; the second serial data communication protocol architecture comprises a plurality of Virtual Local Area Networks; the encapsulating further comprises mapping the plurality of addressable ports to the plurality of Virtual Local Area Networks; wherein the first data communication protocol architecture comprises flow control facilities; and the encapsulating further comprises emulating the flow control facilities within the second serial data communication protocol encapsulated first data communication protocol packet; wherein the emulating further comprises: mapping the first data communication protocol flow control facilities to a second serial data communication protocol quality of service levels, wherein each of the plurality of addressable ports comprises one or more flow control facilities; and the plurality of addressable ports provide an internal buffering scheme to implement flow control capability.