CENTRALIZED CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT PLANES FOR DIFFERENT INDEPENDENT SWITCHING DOMAINS

摘要

A network includes a first switching domain having a distributed fabric comprised of interconnected standalone switches. The standalone switches communicate with each other in accordance with a packet-based distributed fabric protocol. A second switching domain has a plurality of cell-based switches in communication with a cell-based switch fabric. The cell-based switches communicate with each other through the cell-based switch fabric in accordance with a cell-based distributed fabric protocol. One of the cell-based switches is coupled by a communication link to one of the standalone switches of the first switching domain. The second switching domain includes a server device coupled to one of the cell-based switches. The server device is configured with logic to process control packets for the standalone switches in accordance with the packet-based distributed fabric protocol and control packets for the cell-based switches in accordance with a protocol that is different from the packet-based distributed fabric protocol.

主权项

1. A switching domain comprising:
a cell-based switch fabric; a plurality of cell-based switches coupled to the cell-based switch fabric, each cell-based switch communicating with each other cell-based switch through the cell-based switch fabric in accordance with a cell-based distributed fabric protocol; and a server device coupled to one of the cell-based switches, the server device comprising:
memory storing program code for providing control plane functionality for a switching domain comprised of a plurality of interconnected standalone packet-based switches that communicate with each other in accordance with a packet-based distributed fabric protocol and program code for providing control plane functionality for the plurality of cell-based switches that communicate with each other through the cell-based switch fabric in accordance with the cell-based distributed fabric protocol; anda processor executing the program code stored in the memory to process control packets for the switching domain comprised of the plurality of interconnected standalone switches in accordance with the packet-based distributed fabric protocol and control packets for the plurality of cell-based switches in accordance with a protocol different from the packet-based distributed fabric protocol.