Fabric interconnect for distributed fabric architecture

摘要

A system includes scaled-out fabric coupler (SFC) boxes and distributed line card (DLC) boxes. Each SFC box has fabric ports and a cell-based switch fabric for switching cells. Each DLC box is in communication with every SFC box. Each DLC box has network ports receiving packets and network processors. Each processor has a fabric interface that provides SerDes channels. The processors divide each packet received over the network ports into cells and distribute the cells of each packet across the SerDes channels. Each DLC box further comprises DLC fabric ports through which the DLC is in communication with the SFCs. Each DLC fabric port includes a pluggable interface with a given number of lanes over which to transmit and receive cells. Each lane is mapped to one of the SerDes channels such that an equal number of SerDes channels of each fabric interface is mapped to each DLC fabric port.

主权项

1. A distributed line card (DLC), comprising:
a plurality of network ports receiving packets over a network; a plurality of network processors, each network processor having a fabric interface that provides a plurality of SerDes (Serializer/Deserializer) channels, each network processor dividing each packet received over the network ports into a plurality of cells and distributing the cells of each received packet across the SerDes channels; and a plurality of fabric ports through which the DLC is in communication with scaled-out fabric couplers, each fabric port including a pluggable interface with a given number of lanes over which to transmit and receive cells, each lane of each pluggable interface being mapped to one of the SerDes channels of the fabric interfaces of the plurality of network processors such that an equal number of SerDes channels of each fabric interface is mapped to each of the fabric ports.