Inventors:
Gopal S. Krishna - San Jose CA
Peter Ka-Fai Chow - San Jose CA
Somnath Viswanath - San Jose CA
Shr-Jie Tzeng - Fremont CA
Mrudula Kanuri - Santa Clara CA
Assignee:
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. - Sunnyvale CA
International Classification:
G06F 15173
Abstract:
A centralized policy server sends policy messages, that describe network management policy, to network switches. Each policy message includes a packet attribute that enables a network switch to uniquely identify a received data packet, and either a priority level or network switch action that describes the switching operation to be performed by the network switch. The network switches are configured for implementing the network management policy by storing switching actions for prescribed data packets, and templates that specify frame data parameters for identifying the prescribed data packets. Each network switch, configured for performing layer and layer switching in an Ethernet (IEEE 802. 3) network without blocking of incoming data packets, includes in each network switch port a packet classifier module configured for classifying a received data packet based on a template generated based on the policy messages. In particular, the network switch stores a plurality of user-programmable templates, each configured for identifying a corresponding class of data packet.