Jitterless and lossless switching fabric with network routing
First Claim
1. A switching fabric which provides substantially jitterless and lossless transmission from a source switch to a destination switch in a network, comprising:
- at least one switch processor for determining, in response to at least one call request, if capacity exists in a link to establish a route from said source switch to said destination switch, said at least one switch processor blocking said call when no bandwidth is available;
at least one buffer for holding data packets associated with said at least one call when bandwidth is available in said link, said at least one buffer coupled to said switch processor; and
said at least one switch processor further operable to provision a required number of contiguous time slots in a specified frame when said bandwidth is available in said link, said processor further operable to route said data packets by counting said number of contiguous time slots provisioned to said data packets and cross-referencing said number of contiguous time slots to an output port and to switch said data packets in said given time frames.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A switching fabric has input ports, output ports, buffers and at least one switch processor, which determines the available capacity of links at a switch and communicates this information to other switches in a network on a periodic basis. Based on this knowledge, the switch processor of the present invention determines if the necessary number of contiguous time slots in a time frame are available for the call in question. The routing method of the present method uses the periodically updated bandwidth usage to determine a route from a source switch to a destination switch. By utilizing periodic updates of bandwidth usage and assigning contiguous time slots, time slot availability becomes predictable and cell streams travel jointly along the same route, which in turn eliminates cell loss and jitter.
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Citations
36 Claims
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1. A switching fabric which provides substantially jitterless and lossless transmission from a source switch to a destination switch in a network, comprising:
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at least one switch processor for determining, in response to at least one call request, if capacity exists in a link to establish a route from said source switch to said destination switch, said at least one switch processor blocking said call when no bandwidth is available;
at least one buffer for holding data packets associated with said at least one call when bandwidth is available in said link, said at least one buffer coupled to said switch processor; and
said at least one switch processor further operable to provision a required number of contiguous time slots in a specified frame when said bandwidth is available in said link, said processor further operable to route said data packets by counting said number of contiguous time slots provisioned to said data packets and cross-referencing said number of contiguous time slots to an output port and to switch said data packets in said given time frames. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A method for providing substantially jitterless and lossless transmission from a source switch to a destination switch, said method comprising the steps of:
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determining a set of candidate routes, in response to at least one call request, by calculating link capacity between said source switch and said destination switch;
comparing a required bandwidth of said call request with a maximum available bandwidth of a link to select a call route;
selecting a direct link for said call route if said capacity of said direct link is available;
selecting an alternate link for said call route if said direct link is unavailable and said alternate link has available bandwidth, said alternate link including at least one switch;
blocking said call request when said required bandwidth is unavailable;
updating said link capacity on a periodic basis at said source switch, said destination switch and other switches to permit dynamic changing of said call route during a call assigning a contiguous set of time slots in a given time frame to accommodate said call request;
internally routing data packets by cross-referencing a number of contiguous time slots assigned for said call request with an output port; and
switching said data packets associated with said call request within said given time frame. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26)
assigning a contiguous set of time slots in a given time frame to accommodate said call request; and
buffering data packets associated with said call request contiguously in a buffer.
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25. The method according to claim 24, wherein a size of said buffer is structured to hold a number of data packets receivable over a transport medium in said given time frame.
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26. The method according to claim 24, wherein said buffer is a partitioned memory device for holding a number of data packets receivable over a transport medium.
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27. A network including a switching fabric which provides substantially jitterless and lossless transmission from a source switch to a destination switch, comprising:
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at least one switch processor for determining, in response to at least one call request, if capacity exists in a link to establish a call route from said source switch to said destination switch, said at least one switch processor blocking said call request when said capacity is unavailable;
at least one buffer for holding data packets associated with said at least one call when bandwidth is available in said link, said at least one buffer coupled to said at least one switch processor; and
said at least one switch processor further operable to provision a required number of contiguous time slots in a given time frame and to route said data packets by cross-referencing said number of contiguous time slots provisioned to said data packets associated with said call an output port and switch said data packets in given time frames. - View Dependent Claims (28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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35. A switching fabric for providing substantially jitterless and lossless switching of data packets, comprising;
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at least one switch processor for determining bandwidth availability by checking periodically updated bandwidth availability from other switches in response to a call request, said at least one switch processor rejecting said call request when a required bandwidth is unavailable;
said at least one switch processor assigning contiguous time slots in a given time frame to said data packets when said required bandwidth is available;
at least one input unit for processing said data packets when said required bandwidth is available wherein said input unit includes at least one buffer for holding said data packets, said buffer sized to hold a number of data packets corresponding to said given time frame and a speed of a transport medium; and
at least one output unit for receiving processed data packets from said at least one input unit and transmitting said processed data packets to a next switch. - View Dependent Claims (36)
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Specification