Patent · US Expired

Network switch providing dynamic load balancing

US6208644A · kind A · utility

58Cited by
3References
10Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMar 12, 1998
Grant dateMar 27, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 12, 2018

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L2012/568
  • WIPO fieldTelecommunications
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A network switch routes data transmissions between network stations, each data transmission including network addresses of the source and destination network stations. The network switch includes a set of input/output (I/O) ports each for receiving data transmissions from and transmitting data transmissions to a subset of the network stations. Each I/O port is identified by a "physical" port ID and a "logical" port ID. While each I/O port's physical port ID is unique, all I/O ports that can route data to the same subset of network stations share the same logical port ID. Each I/O port receiving a data transmission from a network station sends its logical port ID and the network addresses included in the data transmission to an address translation system. The address translation system uses data in the translation request to maintain a lookup table relating each subset of network addresses to a logical port ID identifying all I/O ports that communicate with network stations identified by that subset of network address. The address translation system responds to an address translation request by returning the logical port ID of all I/O ports that can send data transmissions to a dest…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.