Traffic management for virtual cluster switching

• US 9,231,890 B2
• Filed: 04/22/2011
• Issued: 01/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Vobbilisetty, Suresh, Koganti, Phanidhar, Chatwani, Dilip
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Parth
• Application Number:
  US13/092,877
• Publication Number:
  US 20110299391A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,719 Days
• Field of Search: 370/339, 370/395.5, 370/357, 370/237, 370/219, 370/401, 370/232, 709/235
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/586 of virtual routers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/66 Layer 2 routing, e.g. in Ethernet based MAN's
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/26 using explicit feedback to the source, e.g. choke packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/265 sent by intermediate network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/357 Fibre channel switches
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/65 Re-configuration of fast packet switches
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 Virtual switches

Abstract

One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch system. The switch includes one or more ports on the switch configured to transmit packets encapsulated based on a first protocol. The switch further includes a traffic management mechanism and a control mechanism. During operation, the control mechanism forms a logical switch based on a second protocol, receives an automatically assigned identifier for the logical switch without requiring manual configuration of the identifier, and joins a virtual cluster switch.

Claims

1. A switch, comprising:

a control module adapted to;

provide a control plane with configuration capabilities;

join an Ethernet fabric via the control plane to become a member switch of the Ethernet fabric, wherein the Ethernet fabric incorporates one or more physical member switches functioning jointly as a single logical switch; and

operate the Ethernet fabric as a single Ethernet switch based on the control plane; and

a traffic management module adapted to;

in response to determining congestion in a local queue, extract a source media access control (MAC) address of a packet in the local queue, wherein the source MAC address is encapsulated in a fabric encapsulation header, which is used to transport packets among member switches within the Ethernet fabric; and

construct a congestion notification frame for a device corresponding to the extracted source MAC address.

2. The switch of claim 1, wherein the traffic management module is further adapted to associate incoming traffic with two outgoing ports corresponding to two respective equal-cost data paths to a common destination, thereby facilitating load balancing.

3. The switch of claim 1, wherein the traffic management module is further adapted to perform priority-based flow control on a respective link.

4. The switch of claim 1, wherein the traffic management module is further adapted to perform enhanced transmission selection for ingress traffic;

and wherein the enhanced transmission selection performs strict enforcement of bandwidth allocation to a first class of traffic.

5. The switch of claim 1, wherein the traffic management module is further adapted to construct a congestion notification frame indicating a congestion for a traffic source in response to detecting the congestion.

6. The switch of claim 1, wherein the traffic management module is further adapted to, in response to a first class of traffic not using entire allocated bandwidth of the member switch and allocated to the first class of traffic, allocate the unused bandwidth to a second class of traffic.

7. The switch of claim 1, further comprising a number of links grouped into a hybrid trunk, wherein the hybrid trunk includes one or more trunk groups.

8. The switch of claim 1, wherein the one or more physical switches are allowed to be coupled in an arbitrary topology.

9. The switch of claim 1, wherein a packet received at the switch is encapsulated based on a second protocol.

10. The switch of claim 9, wherein the second protocol is one or more of:

a Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL) protocol, wherein the packets are encapsulated in TRILL headers; and

an Internet Protocol (IP), wherein the packets are encapsulated in IP headers.

11. The switch of claim 1, wherein the logical switch is a logical Fibre Channel (FC) switch.

12. The switch of claim 1, wherein a fabric identifier is associated with the Ethernet fabric, and wherein the fabric identifier is associated with a respective physical member switch of the one or more physical member switches.

13. A method, comprising:

providing a control plane with automatic configuration capabilities;

joining, by a switch, an Ethernet fabric via the control plane to become a member switch of the Ethernet fabric, wherein the Ethernet fabric incorporates one or more physical member switches functioning jointly as a single logical switch;

operating the Ethernet fabric as a single Ethernet switch based on the control plane;

in response to determining congestion in a local queue of the switch, extracting a source media access control (MAC) address of a packet in the local queue, wherein the source MAC address is encapsulated in a fabric encapsulation header, which is used to transport packets among member switches within the Ethernet fabric; and

constructing a congestion notification frame for a device corresponding to the extracted source MAC address.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising associating incoming traffic with two outgoing ports corresponding to two respective equal-cost data paths to a common destination, thereby facilitating load balancing.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising performing enhanced transmission selection for ingress traffic;

wherein the enhanced transmission selection performs strict enforcement of bandwidth allocation to a first class of traffic.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising constructing a congestion notification frame indicating a congestion for a traffic source in response to detecting the congestion.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising, in response to a first class of traffic not using entire allocated bandwidth of the member switch and allocated to the first class of traffic, allocating the unused bandwidth to a second class of traffic.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising grouping a number of links into a hybrid trunk, wherein the hybrid trunk includes one or more trunk groups.

19. A switch, comprising:

a control module comprising;

a control plane means for providing a control plane with automatic configuration capabilities;

a joining means for joining an Ethernet fabric via the control plane to become a member switch of the Ethernet fabric, wherein the Ethernet fabric incorporates one or more physical member switches functioning jointly as a single logical switch;

an Ethernet switch means for operating the Ethernet fabric as a single Ethernet switch based on the control plane; and

a traffic management means for, in response to determining congestion in a local queue of the switch, extracting a source media access control (MAC) address of a packet in the local queue, wherein the source MAC address is encapsulated in a fabric encapsulation header, which is used to transport packets among member within the Ethernet fabric; and

a notification means for constructing a congestion notification frame for a device corresponding to the extracted source MAC address.