Patent · US Active

Multi-chassis emulated switch

US8531991B2 · kind B2 · utility

6Cited by
3References
21Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 16, 2006
Grant dateSep 10, 2013
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 10, 2029

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L49/70
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A solution is provided wherein the interfaces between multiple chassis (e.g., edge switches) in a network of layer 2 devices and a spanning tree device are treated as a single emulated switch. This emulated switch effectively enables two different views to the two different sides. Thus, frames from the network of layer 2 switches destined to any port of the emulated switch may take any of the links (through any of the physical switches), thereby enabling effective load-balancing for frames traveling from the layer 2 network side into the spanning tree device. Meanwhile the spanning tree device does not recognize an illegal loop in its connection to two different edge switches as it views the two links as a single logical EtherChannel.

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