Management of a distributed fabric system

摘要

A distributed fabric system has distributed line card (DLC) chassis and scaled-out fabric coupler (SFC) chassis. Each DLC includes a network processor and fabric ports. Each network processor of each DLC includes a fabric interface in communication with the fabric ports of that DLC. Each SFC includes at least one fabric element and SFC fabric ports. A fabric communication link connects each SFC fabric port to one DLC fabric port. Each fabric communication link includes cell-carrying lanes. Each fabric element of each SFC detects connectivity between each SFC fabric port of that SFC and one DLC fabric port over a fabric communication link. Each SFC includes program code that reads connectivity matrix from fabric element chips and sends connection information corresponding to the detected connectivity from that SFC to a central agent. A network element includes the central agent, which, when executed, constructs a topology of the distributed fabric system from the connection information sent from each SFC.