Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for effectuating control-plane changes at increased speeds to protect a network in which switching operations are performed. Operations to effectuate control-plane changes in the network can be divided between software and more-rapid, dedicated hardware within a line card. Examples of operations reserved to hardware implementation can include blocking and unblocking of ports, flushing of learned entries from switch tables, and coordination of control-plane changes through the generation of messages sent between nodes, and also between line cards of a node. Determinations about the need for hardware-driven, control-plane changes may be made based on events occurring in the network in accordance with any of a number of different network protection protocols. The protocol may be implemented in a state machine and the software may determine the state of the hardware through a master/slave relationship.

Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for effectuating control-plane changes at increased speeds to protect a network in which switching operations are performed. Operations to effectuate control-plane changes in the network can be divided between software and more-rapid, dedicated hardware within a line card. Examples of operations reserved to hardware implementation can include blocking and unblocking of ports, flushing of learned entries from switch tables, and coordination of control-plane changes through the generation of messages sent between nodes, and also between line cards of a node. Determinations about the need for hardware-driven, control-plane changes may be made based on events occurring in the network in accordance with any of a number of different network protection protocols. The protocol may be implemented in a state machine and the software may determine the state of the hardware through a master/slave relationship.

Abstract: A non-blocking switching architecture having a fabric that is capable of switching on two levels by formatting signals crossing the switching fabric as “microcells” having a predetermined format. The microcells are routed by the switching fabric from an ingress line card to destination devices that can include egress line cards and/or processing resources. The processing resources can reformat the signals carried by the microcells to a second format. The reformatted signals can then be packaged as microcells and routed to a selected processing resource to provide switching in the second format. The processing resources transform the switched signals in the second format to a signal in the original format, which is carried by the switching fabric as microcells to an egress line card.