Abstract: A network element and method for programming a network element that includes detecting an update to a first route in a routing information base (RIB) is disclosed. The method includes locating a first route network prefix associated with the first route within a network prefix trie (NPT); determining that, prior to the update, a first parent network prefix and the first route network prefix were reachable using a pair of different next hops connected to the network element; and determining that, after the update, the first parent network prefix and the first route network prefix are reachable using a first common next hop connected to the network element. The method also includes removing an existing forwarding information base (FIB) entry in the FIB associated with the first route network prefix.

Abstract: In some implementations, a network device includes a housing and a set of switch cards within the housing and including a first set of connectors. A set of line cards within the housing includes a second set of connectors. The set of line cards are oriented orthogonally to the set of switch cards. A first set of power supplies and a second set of power supplies are in the housing. A midplane includes a plurality of circuit board assemblies arranged within the housing between the set of line cards and the first and second sets of power supplies to allow air to flow through the set of line cards to the set of switch cards, first set of power supplies, and second set of power supplies.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein relate to a system for positioning indicator lights of a network device. The system may include a circuit board, which may include a circuit board edge positioned behind a front panel of the network device, two surfaces; and a side of the circuit board edge positioned between the two surfaces. The system may also include a hole through the circuit board near the circuit board edge, a cutout extending from a portion of the hole to the side of the circuit board edge, a LED coupled to the surface of the circuit board and adapted to emit light into the hole, and a lightpipe disposed in the hole to receive light emitted from the LED into a first end of the lightpipe. The lightpipe may direct the light from a second end of the lightpipe toward an opening in the front panel of the network device.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure include optical transmitters and transceivers with improved reliability. In some embodiments, the optical transmitters are used in network devices, such as in conjunction with a network switch. In one embodiment, lasers are operated at low power to improve reliability and power consumption. The output of the laser may be modulated by a non-direct modulator and received by integrated optical components, such as a modulator and/or multiplexer. The output of the optical components may be amplified by a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). Various advantageous configurations of lasers, optical components, and SOAs are disclosed. In some embodiments, SOAs are configured as part of a pluggable optical communication module, for example.

Abstract: Each switch unit in a networking system shares its local state information among other switch units in the networking system, collectively referred to as the shared forwarding state. Each switch unit creates a respective set of output queues that correspond to ports on other switch unites based on the shared forwarding state. A received packet on an ingress switch unit operating in accordance with a first routing protocol instance can be enqueued on an output queue in the ingress switch; the packet is subsequently processed by the egress switch unit, operating in accordance with a second routing protocol instance that corresponds to the output queue.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided herein for a mechanism for faster convergence of network traffic after a network device's link is interrupted by leveraging the withdrawal of the ethernet virtual private network (EVPN) auto discovery (AD) route. This may be accomplished by a first device checking an ethernet segment identifier (ESI) status flag before generating an entry in the first device's forwarding table, where the entry is based on an IP route for a host received by a second network device. In response to receiving a withdrawal of an EVPN AD route from the second device, the first device may update the ESI status flag to indicate that the host on the ethernet segment (ES) is reachable only via the third device and update the entry that was based on the IP route for the host received by the second network device to prevent sending traffic to the host via the second device.

Abstract: A networking system may include a first network such as a private cloud network and a second network such as a public cloud network. The first network may include a switch coupled to a computing resource. To facilitate a robust and flexible inter-network connection, the networking system may include network connector circuitry having a connector endpoint at the first network and a network connector coupling the connector endpoint to a network element at the second network. A controller for the first network may provide control signals and configuration data to the network connector circuitry to form the connection to the second network and may configure the switch to forward external network traffic to and from the connector endpoint via a switch port directly coupled to the connector endpoint.

Abstract: A networking system may include a switch coupled to a computing resource. A resource management system may control the computing resource. A controller may be coupled to the switch. The controller may include a resource management interface that is coupled to the resource management system via a communications link. The resource management interface may receive computing resource information for the computing resource via the communications link. The controller may provide control data to the switch to update a cloud network for the computing resource based on the received computing resource information.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method is provided. The method includes receiving a data packet via an ingress interface of the network device. The method also includes determining whether the data packet comprises an Internet Protocol version 4 (IPV4) or an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPV6) packet. The method further includes in response to determining that the packet comprises an IPV4 packet, identifying a first entry in an adjacency table. The first entry is associated with an address prefix. The address prefix is associated with first Internet Protocol (IP) address of the data packet. The first entry indicates a next hop for the data packet. The adjacency table comprises a second entry associated with the address prefix. The method further includes forwarding the packet to the next hop indicated by the first entry in the adjacency table, via an egress interface of the network device.

Abstract: A digital crosspoint switch of a network switching system (NSS) replicates input data received via a first network interface to a first data processing port of a data processing card. The input data includes a digital market data feed comprising market-data packets. The crosspoint switch has internal crosspoint ports and external crosspoint ports. The data processing card includes a programmable logic device and a plurality of data processing ports connected to the internal crosspoint ports. The NSS includes a plurality of network interfaces connected to the external crosspoint ports. The data processing card processes the input data and generates processed data on the second data processing port at least in part by only including market-data packets that meet a first predetermined filtering criterion in the processed data. The crosspoint switch replicates the processed data from the second data processing port to the second network interface.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes receiving, at a network management system (NMS) from a client, a message having an object reference embedding a query, the query requesting an operation to be performed on data stored in a data tree maintained by the NMS. The method provides for generating, by the NMS, a result of the query by performing the operation on the data. In this embodiment, the method further provides for sending, by the NMS to the client, the result of the query. In some embodiments, the object reference may include a pathname.

Abstract: Techniques for operating a network device for sharing resources in a hardware forwarding table. In some embodiments, the network device may generate groups of routes having a common set of next hops; for each group of routes of the generated groups: collect resilient adjacencies associated with routes in the group; assemble pairs of the collected resilient adjacencies; and determine a number of differences between resilient adjacencies in each of the assembled pairs. The network device may further order the assembled pairs based on the number of differences, identify a pair of resilient adjacencies associated with a lowest number of differences; select a resilient adjacency of the identified pair of resilient adjacencies; program one or more routes associated with the selected resilient adjacency, to refer to the other resilient adjacency of the identified pair of resilient adjacencies; and remove an entry associated with the selected resilient adjacency from a forwarding table.

Abstract: A network device includes a routing information base including a first plurality of entries, a forwarding information base including a second plurality of entries; a forwarding information base entry optimizer that programs the second plurality of entries of the forwarding information base using, at least in part, the first plurality of entries; and a network processor that forwards packets based on the second plurality of entries of the forwarding information base. The second plurality of entries is less than the first plurality of entries.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided herein for allocating the same ESI label on multihomed peers for a given ES. In some embodiments, each network device that provides multihoming to a host using an ES, advertises EVPN AD per ES routes to each other, wherein the EVPN AD per ES routes comprise an ESI label associated with the ES. Because the network devices advertise the same ESI label for the ES, a first network device generates a bitmap. The first network device uses the bitmap to include the advertised ESI label in replicated packets that the first network device forwards to the other network devices that provide multihoming to the host via the ES. The network devices that consider themselves non-DF devices will drop the packet. The network devices that consider themselves the DF device will not forward the packet to the host via the ES because of the ESI label.

Abstract: A system and method for provisionally authenticating a host moving from one router to another router in a network using border gateway protocol (BGP) is disclosed. A host is initially authenticated at a first BGP router, this discovery is advertised to a second BGP router pursuant to BGP with a new extended community indicating successful authentication (or pre-authentication) of the host at the first BGP router. An indication for re-authentication of the host at the second BGP router is then received, which blocks network traffic from the host to the second BGP router. Due to the notification of a previous authentication of the host, the second BGP router begins a provisional authentication session. In response to a successful completion of the provisional authentication session, the host is authorized to transmit network traffic on the second BGP router and subsequently blocked from doing the same at the first BGP router.

Abstract: A method and apparatus of a network element that processes changes to forwarding information is described. In an exemplary embodiment, the network element receives an indication of a change to a network topology of the network. The network element forwarding information includes a first plurality of prefixes and a plurality of adjacencies and each of the first plurality of prefixes references one of the plurality of adjacencies. In addition, in response to receiving the indication of the change to the network topology, the network element identifies a change to the plurality of adjacencies. Furthermore, the network element updates, in-place, the plurality of adjacencies in-place with the change to the plurality adjacencies.

Abstract: A system that provides communication services may include two switches for redundancy. The switches may indicate that they are independent devices to upstream devices and indicate that they are the same device to a predetermined device set. If one of the switches enters an undesired state, then the switch in a standby state may modify the upstream devices to preferentially forward packets directed toward the predetermined device set to the standby switch rather than an active switch, and after transitioning the active switch to the standby state, transition the standby switch to the active state.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure include optical transmitters and transceivers with improved reliability. In some embodiments, the optical transmitters are used in network devices, such as in conjunction with a network switch. In one embodiment, lasers are operated at low power to improve reliability and power consumption. The output of the laser may be modulated by a non-direct modulator and received by integrated optical components, such as a modulator and/or multiplexer. The output of the optical components may be amplified by a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). Various advantageous configurations of lasers, optical components, and SOAs are disclosed. In some embodiments, SOAs are configured as part of a pluggable optical communication module, for example.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided herein for supporting Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) in networks that use Ethernet Virtual Private Network (EVPN) All-Active (A-A) multihoming. This may be accomplished by a network administrator defining a super root group comprising a plurality of network devices, wherein each network device provides A-A multihoming to a multihomed device. All network devices in the super root group use a common bridge ID when generating BPDU messages for STP. All network devices in the super root group will send BPDU messages comprising the common bridge ID to the multihomed device. Because the BPDU messages comprise a common bridge ID, the multihomed device treats the network devices in the super root group as a single local bridge, thus STP is enabled without causing STP flapping.

Abstract: A method and apparatus of a network element that processes network data using a transformed packet classification list in a network element is described. A network element receives a packet classification list and transforms a first set of the plurality of range sets corresponding to a first one of the two or more types of packet characteristics into a first set of range labels. In addition, the network element transforms a second set of the plurality of range sets corresponding to a second one of the two or more types of packet characteristics into a second set of range labels. The network element may create a set of combination labels. The network element further processes network data by performing a first lookup to derive a first combination packet label, performing a second lookup of at least the first combination packet label, and applying a rule resulting from the second lookup to the network data.