Abstract: A heat management system for air-cooled engines suitable to power yard care equipment or vehicles. The system may generally comprise an engine, a blower configured to blow ambient cooling air across the engine, and an exhaust system comprising an exhaust header and a muffler. The exhaust header has an inlet end which receives heated exhaust gas from the engine and an outlet end fluidly coupled to the muffler. An air control baffle is configured to redirect a portion of the cooling air from the blower towards the exhaust header and the muffler to enhance cooling the exhaust system. The system may further include an outermost protective shield exposed to equipment operators and an inner heat barrier or shield located between the muffler and protective shield. The system is designed to ameliorate both radiative and convective sources of heat transfer to maintain the protective shield at temperatures below established industry standards.

Abstract: A switch may operate in a cut-through mode and a store-and-forward mode. While in a default cut-through mode, the switch continuously monitors ports for certain health metrics. If those health metrics fall below a threshold, the switch changes to operate in a store-and-forward mode, either for a predetermined period of time or until the health metrics rise above a threshold, at which point the switch can resume cut-through mode operations. If health metrics fall below an even lower threshold, or remain below threshold for a predefined period of time, the switch can automatically alert a remote system or software process.

Abstract: A method for managing network traffic is shown. The method includes establishing a virtual tunnel between a source endpoint and a destination endpoint, the virtual tunnel including a plurality of data flow paths, each of the plurality of data flow streams connecting the source endpoint and the destination endpoint. The method includes providing, via the destination endpoint, a plurality of credits to the source endpoint, the plurality of credits provided via two or more of the plurality of data flow paths. The method includes updating, at the source endpoint, a data transmission sequence based on the received plurality of credits. The method includes providing a plurality of data packets based on the data transmission sequence to the destination endpoint.

Abstract: A switch may operate in a cut-through mode and a store-and-forward mode. While in a default cut-through mode, the switch continuously monitors ports for certain health metrics. If those health metrics fall below a threshold, the switch changes to operate in a store-and-forward mode, either for a predetermined period of time or until the health metrics rise above a threshold, at which point the switch can resume cut-through mode operations. If health metrics fall below an even lower threshold, or remain below threshold for a predefined period of time, the switch can automatically alert a remote system or software process.

Abstract: A method for managing network traffic is shown. The method includes establishing a virtual tunnel between a source endpoint and a destination endpoint, the virtual tunnel including a plurality of data flow paths, each of the plurality of data flow streams connecting the source endpoint and the destination endpoint. The method includes providing, via the destination endpoint, a plurality of credits to the source endpoint, the plurality of credits provided via two or more of the plurality of data flow paths. The method includes updating, at the source endpoint, a data transmission sequence based on the received plurality of credits. The method includes providing a plurality of data packets based on the data transmission sequence to the destination endpoint.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are balloon protectors, balloon catheters including the balloon protectors, and methods thereof. The balloon protector (100) includes a balloon-covering section (106) and a tabbed section (110) proximal of the balloon-covering section. The balloon-covering section is configured to cover a drug-coated balloon of the balloon catheter. The balloon-covering section includes a tip piece (104) of the balloon protector coupled to a distal-end portion of a body piece of the balloon protector. The tabbed section includes a pair of tabs (122) configured to be continuously pulled away from each other to progressively split the balloon protector along the balloon-covering section until the balloon protector is completely peeled off the balloon. Beneficially, an outer diameter of the tip piece can provide a stop to prevent insertion of a balloon catheter into an introducer sheath while the balloon protector is covering a balloon of the balloon protector.

Abstract: A method for managing network traffic is shown. The method includes establishing a virtual tunnel between a source endpoint and a destination endpoint, the virtual tunnel including a plurality of data flow paths, each of the plurality of data flow streams connecting the source endpoint and the destination endpoint. The method includes providing, via the destination endpoint, a plurality of credits to the source endpoint, the plurality of credits provided via two or more of the plurality of data flow paths. The method includes updating, at the source endpoint, a data transmission sequence based on the received plurality of credits. The method includes providing a plurality of data packets based on the data transmission sequence to the destination endpoint.

Abstract: A system includes a pre-trigger buffer and a post-trigger buffer for recording entries related to specific network element. Buffer management monitoring circuitry captures entries leading up to a trigger criterion being met in the pre-trigger buffer and entries following the trigger criterion being met in the post-trigger buffer. The trigger criterion may include network element status, such as a threshold queue level; or an event, such as a dropped packet. The pre-trigger buffer may include a circular buffer in which older entries are overwritten by newer entries. Once the trigger condition is met, the pre-trigger buffer contents are held while the post-trigger buffer fills. Once the post-trigger buffer fills, the contents of the buffers may be read.

Abstract: Continuing to integrate more aggregate bandwidth and higher radix into switch devices is an economic imperative because it creates value both for the supplier and customer in large data center environments which are an increasingly important part of the marketplace. While new silicon processes continue to shrink transistor and other chip feature dimensions, process technology cannot be relied upon as a key driver of power reduction. Transitioning from 28 nm to 16 nm is a special case where FinFET provides additional power scaling, but subsequent FinFET nodes are not expected to deliver as substantial of power reductions to meet the desired increases in integration. The disclosed switch architecture attacks the power consumption problem by controlling the rate at which power-consuming activities occur.

Abstract: A network switch including a set of communication ports is provided. The communication ports may have an allocated prebuffer to store data during packet switching operations. The network switch may further include a calendar associated with the set of communication ports that provides bandwidth configuration for the set of communication ports. The network switch may further include a secondary calendar that may be dynamically setup. The secondary calendar may provide an alternative bandwidth configuration strategy for the set of communication ports. The switch includes circuitry that may increase the prebuffer size and upon the successful increase of the prebuffer size reconfigure the set of communication ports from the original calendar to the secondary calendar, without a reboot. The circuitry may reset the prebuffer size after reconfiguration is complete and the switch may continue operation according to the reconfigured settings.

Abstract: Continuing to integrate more aggregate bandwidth and higher radix into switch devices is an economic imperative because it creates value both for the supplier and customer in large data center environments which are an increasingly important part of the marketplace. While new silicon processes continue to shrink transistor and other chip feature dimensions, process technology cannot be relied upon as a key driver of power reduction. Transitioning from 28 nm to 16 nm is a special case where FinFET provides additional power scaling, but subsequent FinFET nodes are not expected to deliver as substantial of power reductions to meet the desired increases in integration. The disclosed switch architecture attacks the power consumption problem by controlling the rate at which power-consuming activities occur.

Abstract: A system and method for a flexible number of lookups in pipeline-based packet processors. Pipeline-based packet processors can be configured to allow multiple lookups per physical table. In one embodiment, a start of packet (SOP) cell is assigned to a first slot of a packet processing pipeline, and a non-SOP cell is assigned to a second slot of a packet processing pipeline. Access of a table by the second slot can be usurped by the SOP cell in the first slot.

Abstract: A system includes a pre-trigger buffer and a post-trigger buffer for recording entries related to specific network element. Buffer management monitoring circuitry captures entries leading up to a trigger criterion being met in the pre-trigger buffer and entries following the trigger criterion being met in the post-trigger buffer. The trigger criterion may include network element status, such as a threshold queue level; or an event, such as a dropped packet. The pre-trigger buffer may include a circular buffer in which older entries are overwritten by newer entries. Once the trigger condition is met, the pre-trigger buffer contents are held while the post-trigger buffer fills. Once the post-trigger buffer fills, the contents of the buffers may be read.

Abstract: A device for instrumentation and traffic disposition of a network using one or more time-stamps may include a receiving port to receive a data packet. A device configuration module may be configured to determine whether the device is a boundary device located on a boundary of an instrumented sub-network of the network. If the determination is made that device is the boundary device, a frame processing module may insert a first time-stamp at a first offset from a frame checksum (FCS) field in a data frame associated with the data packet. Otherwise, a corresponding time-stamp may be inserted at a second offset from the FCS field. The one or more time-stamps may enable a receiving endpoint device of the network to determine timeliness information associated with the data packet.

Abstract: A system for providing oversubscription of pipeline bandwidth comprises a steer module, an absorption buffer, an ingress packet processor (IPP), a memory management unit (MMU), and a main packet buffer. The steer module receives packets that include start of packet (SOP), middle of packet (MOP), and end of packet (EOP) cells, attaches a packet identifier to the cells, passes the MOP and EOP cells to the MMU, and stores the SOP cells and EOP metadata in the absorption buffer. The IPP processes the SOP cells and EOP metadata and passes the same to the MMU. The MMU stores the MOP, EOP, and processed SOP cells in the main packet buffer, combines, upon receiving the processed EOP metadata of each packet, the processed SOP cell, the MOP cells and the EOP cell of each packet to reconstruct each packet, and queues each reconstructed packet in an egress port queue.

Abstract: A network switch including a set of communication ports is provided. The communication ports may have an allocated prebuffer to store data during packet switching operations. The network switch may further include a calendar associated with the set of communication ports that provides bandwidth configuration for the set of communication ports. The network switch may further include a secondary calendar that may be dynamically setup. The secondary calendar may provide an alternative bandwidth configuration strategy for the set of communication ports. The switch includes circuitry that may increase the prebuffer size and upon the successful increase of the prebuffer size reconfigure the set of communication ports from the original calendar to the secondary calendar, without a reboot. The circuitry may reset the prebuffer size after reconfiguration is complete and the switch may continue operation according to the reconfigured settings.

Abstract: Aspects of port empty transition scheduling are described herein. In one embodiment, when one or more cells are added to a queue in a network communications device, an enqueue indicator is generated. The enqueue indicator identifies a number of cells added to the queue. With reference to the enqueue indicator, a queue scheduler maintains a count of cells enqueued for communication and issues a port pick credit for a port of the network communications device. A port scheduler schedules a pick for communicating over the port with reference to the port pick credit and forwards the pick to the queue scheduler. In turn, the queue scheduler forwards a queue pick to the queue, and at least one of the cells is forwarded to dequeue logic. According to aspects of the embodiments described herein, empty port scheduling inefficiencies may be avoided and network throughput increased.

Abstract: A system includes a network interface configured to receive a message comprising a routing address, and forward the message in accord with a route. The system further includes logic, operatively connected to the network interface. The logic is configured to apply a mask to the routing address to determine a masked address, and perform an exact match on the masked address.

Abstract: A system and method for a flexible number of lookups in pipeline-based packet processors. Pipeline-based packet processors can be configured to allow multiple lookups per physical table. In one embodiment, a start of packet (SOP) cell is assigned to a first slot of a packet processing pipeline, and a non-SOP cell is assigned to a second slot of a packet processing pipeline. Access of a table by the second slot can be usurped by the SOP cell in the first slot.