Interswitch link mechanism for connecting high-performance network switches
US5742604A · kind A · utility
435Cited by
3References
20Claims
0Family size
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Key dates
| Filing date | Mar 28, 1996 |
| Grant date | Apr 21, 1998 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Mar 28, 2016 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L2212/00
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
An encapsulation mechanism efficiently transports packets between ports of different switches in a network on the basis of, inter alia, virtual local area network (VLAN) associations among those ports. The switches are preferably interconnected by a novel interswitch link (ISL) mechanism that appends ISL destination and source information, along with ISL error detection information, to VLAN-modified packets. The ISL mechanism keeps the VLAN associations of the packets intact during transfer between the switches in accordance with a high-performance switching bus architecture.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.