Systems and methods for implementing virtual switch planes in a physical switch fabric

摘要

A switching device includes multiple interfaces and a switch fabric. The switch fabric includes switch integrated circuits arranged in a number of stages. Multiple virtual switch planes may be implemented in the switch fabric. Data traffic received at the interfaces is selectively assigned to different ones of the virtual switch planes.

主权项

1. A device comprising:
a switch fabric including:
a physical switch plane including:
a group of switch ports,
the group of switch ports including a first quantity of switch ports, the physical switch plane implementing a group of virtual switch planes, and the group of virtual switch planes including a second quantity of virtual switch planes, andthe switch fabric connecting each switch port, of the group of switch ports, to one of a group of interface cards, the group of interface cards including a third quantity of interface cards, each interface card, of the group of interface cards, including the second quantity of connections to the physical switch plane, and the third quantity being less than the first quantity; and a group of queues,
each virtual switch plane, of the group of virtual switch planes, being associated with a respective queue of the group of queues, anda received data unit, determined to be associated with a virtual switch plane, of the group of virtual switch planes, being buffered in the respective queue associated with the virtual switch plane.