Distributed Chassis Architecture Having Integrated Service Appliances

• US 20130107709A1
• Filed: 10/26/2011
• Published: 05/02/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Campbell, Alexander Philip, Kamble, Keshav Govind, Leu, Dar-Ren, Pandey, Vijoy A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,773,999 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/235
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/355 Application aware switches, e.g. for HTTP
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/358 Infiniband Switches

Abstract

A distributed virtual chassis comprises scaled-out fabric coupler (SFC) boxes. Each SFC box has fabric ports and a cell-based switch fabric for switching cells associated with a packet among the SFC fabric ports of that SFC box. Distributed line cards (DLCs) include switching DLCs and an appliance DLC (A-DLC). Each switching DLC has network ports. Each switching DLC and A-DLC has DLC fabric ports. Each switching DLC and A-DLC is connected to each of the SFC boxes. The A-DLC provides an upper layer service for packets arriving on the network ports of the switching DLCs. To forward a packet to the A-DLC, a switching DLC divides the packet into cells and distributes the cells among the SFC boxes. The SFC boxes forward the cells to the A-DLC, and the A-DLC reassembles the packet from the cells and provides the upper layer service to the packet.

Claims

1. A service appliance comprising:

a plurality of fabric ports;

a network processor having a fabric interface in communication with the fabric ports, the fabric interface receiving a cell over each fabric port, each cell corresponding to a different portion of a packet received over a network, the network processor reassembling the packet from the cells; and

a processor complex connected to the network processor by a service port to receive the packet therefrom and to perform an upper layer service on the packet.

2. The service appliance of claim 1, wherein the processor complex is configured to drop the packet in response to a result of the performed service.

3. The service appliance of claim 1, wherein the processor complex is configured to return the packet to the network processor over the service port for forwarding to a real destination of the packet in response to a result of the performed service.

4. The service appliance of claim 3, wherein the fabric interface provides a plurality of SerDes (Serializer/Deserializer) channels for each fabric port and the network processor divides the returned packet into a plurality of cells and distributes the cells across the SerDes channels of the fabric interface for distribution across the fabric ports.

5. The service appliance of claim 1, wherein the service performed by the processor complex includes deep packet inspection.

6. The service appliance of claim 1, wherein the fabric interface of the network processor provides a plurality of SerDes channels for each fabric port, and each fabric port includes 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 interface of the network processor.

7. The service appliance of claim 6, wherein the pluggable interfaces are CXP interfaces.

8. The service appliance of claim 7, wherein the given number of lanes is twelve.

9. The service appliance of claim 7, wherein the given number of lanes is ten.

10. The service appliance of claim 1, wherein the network processor is in communication with the processor complex by a plurality of service ports.

11. A distributed virtual chassis comprising:

a plurality of scaled-out fabric coupler (SFC) boxes, each SFC box having a plurality of SFC fabric ports and a cell-based switch fabric for switching cells associated with a packet among the SFC fabric ports of that SFC box; and

a plurality of distributed line cards (DLCs) including a plurality of switching DLCs and at least one appliance DLC (A-DLC), each switching DLC having a plurality of network ports, each switching DLC and A-DLC having a plurality of DLC fabric ports by which that switching DLC and A-DLC is connected to each of the SFC boxes, the A-DLC being configured to provide an upper layer service for packets arriving on the network ports of the switching DLCs.

12. The distributed virtual chassis of claim 11, further comprising a computer system running a control plane for the distributed virtual chassis, the computer system associating each network port of a given switching DLC with a traffic filter for a traffic flow that requires the upper layer service provided by the A-DLC, the traffic filter being associated with an action that causes packets belonging to the traffic flow and arriving on one of the network ports of the given DLC to be forwarded to the A-DLC, wherein the given DLC forwards the packet by dividing the packet into cells and distributing the cells of the packet among the plurality of SFC boxes for subsequent forwarding to the A-DLC.

13. The distributed virtual chassis of claim 12, wherein the A-DLC comprises:

a network processor having a fabric interface in communication with the DLC fabric ports of the A-DLC, the fabric interface receiving one of the cells of the packet over each DLC fabric port of the A-DLC, each cell corresponding to a different portion of the packet, the network processor reassembling the packet from the cells; and

a processor complex connected to the network processor by a service port to receive the packet therefrom and to perform the upper layer service on the packet.

14. The distributed virtual chassis of claim 12, wherein the network processor is in communication with the processor complex by a plurality of service ports and the control plane operates to load balance packets sent to the processor complex across the service ports.

15. The distributed virtual chassis of claim 14, wherein the processor complex is configured to drop the packet in response to a result of the performed upper layer service.

16. The distributed virtual chassis of claim 14, wherein the processor complex is configured to return the packet to the network processor over the service port for forwarding to a real destination of the packet in response to a result of the performed upper layer service.

17. The distributed virtual chassis of claim 16, wherein the fabric interface of the network processor provides a plurality of SerDes (Serializer/Deserializer) channels for each DLC fabric port of the A-DLC, and the network processor divides the returned packet into a plurality of cells and distributes the cells across the SerDes channels of the fabric interface for distribution across the DLC fabric ports of the A-DLC.

18. The distributed virtual chassis of claim 14, wherein the upper layer service performed by the processor complex includes deep packet inspection.

19. The distributed virtual chassis of claim 11, wherein each DLC fabric port of each switching DLC and A-DLC is connected to one of the SFC fabric ports of each SFC box by a CXP cable.

20-25. -25. (canceled)