Use of Partitions to Reduce Flooding and Filtering Database Size Requirements in Large Layer Two Networks
First Claim
1. A network component, comprising:
- ingress ports;
egress ports;
a memory unit comprising a filtering database (FDB), wherein the FDB comprises a medium access control (MAC) address and a Virtual Local Area Networks (VLAN) Identifier (VID) pair (<
MAC,VID>
) for each of a plurality of end-stations associated with an edge-district partition of a network, wherein the edge-district partition is associated with the network component, and wherein the FDB comprises a wildcard FDB entry corresponding to each VLAN associated with the network component, anda logic unit coupled to the ingress ports and the egress ports, wherein the logic unit is configured to reduce flooding in the edge-district partition of the network;
wherein the logic unit is configured to forward a received frame, having a destination MAC address and a VID for which there is not an exact match in the FDB, towards a core-bridge without flooding based on the wildcard entry in the FDB.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A network component, comprising a memory unit comprising a filtering database (FDB), wherein the FDB comprises a medium access control (MAC) address and a Virtual Local Area Networks (VLAN) Identifier (VID) pair for each of a plurality of end-stations associated with an edge-district partition of a network, wherein the edge-district partition is associated with the network component, and wherein the FDB comprises a wildcard FDB entry corresponding to each VLAN associated with the network component, and a logic unit coupled to the ingress ports and the egress ports, wherein the logic unit is configured to reduce flooding in the edge-district partition of the network; wherein the logic unit is configured to forward a received frame, having a destination MAC address and a VID for which there is not an exact match in the FDB, towards a core-bridge without flooding based on the wildcard entry in the FDB.
50 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A network component, comprising:
-
ingress ports; egress ports; a memory unit comprising a filtering database (FDB), wherein the FDB comprises a medium access control (MAC) address and a Virtual Local Area Networks (VLAN) Identifier (VID) pair (<
MAC,VID>
) for each of a plurality of end-stations associated with an edge-district partition of a network, wherein the edge-district partition is associated with the network component, and wherein the FDB comprises a wildcard FDB entry corresponding to each VLAN associated with the network component, anda logic unit coupled to the ingress ports and the egress ports, wherein the logic unit is configured to reduce flooding in the edge-district partition of the network;
wherein the logic unit is configured to forward a received frame, having a destination MAC address and a VID for which there is not an exact match in the FDB, towards a core-bridge without flooding based on the wildcard entry in the FDB. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A system for managing flooding in a partitioned data center network, comprising:
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a core bridge; and a set of edge-district bridges corresponding to different edge-districts of the partitioned data center network, wherein each edge-district bridge is connected by an internal point-to-point link to the core-bridge, wherein each of the set of edge-district bridges is configured to refrain from flooding a frame to others of the set of edge-district bridges when a frame originating from inside the partitioned data center network had a destination that is outside the partitioned data center network. - View Dependent Claims (16)
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17. A network component implemented method, comprising:
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receiving, by a communication bridge, a frame; determining, by the communication bridge, that a source of the frame is within a local edge-district partition and that a destination of the frame is outside the local edge-district partition; and in response to said determination, forwarding the frame towards a destination outside the local edge-district partition without flooding the frame within the local edge-district partition. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification