The present invention provides methods and devices for implementing a Low Latency Ethernet (“LLE”) solution, also referred to herein as a Data Center Ethernet (“DCE”) solution, which simplifies the connectivity of data centers and provides a high bandwidth, low latency network for carrying Ethernet and storage traffic. Some aspects of the invention involve transforming FC frames into a format suitable for transport on an Ethernet. Some preferred implementations of the invention implement multiple virtual lanes (“VLs”) in a single physical connection of a data center or similar network. Some VLs are “drop” VLs, with Ethernet-like behavior, and others are “no-drop” lanes with FC-like behavior. Some preferred implementations of the invention provide guaranteed bandwidth based on credits and VL. Active buffer management allows for both high reliability and low latency while using small frame buffers. Preferably, the rules for active buffer management are different for drop and no drop VLs.

Fibre channel over Ethernet

One embodiment of the present invention provides a switch. The switch includes a port that couples to a server hosting a number of virtual machines. The switch also includes a set of virtual port grouping information and a virtual port grouping mechanism. During operation, the virtual port grouping mechanism determines whether a frame is traveling from a virtual port group to the same virtual port group. If the frame is not traveling to the same virtual port group, the virtual port grouping mechanism prevents the frame from being forwarded.

Virtual port grouping for virtual cluster switching

A system, apparatus and method for an efficiently performing address lookups and switching for computer networks is disclosed. The present disclosure provides for address translation between network devices utilizing different protocols. The system, apparatus and method described herein provide for address translation for encapsulated communications to enable mixed protocol communications using a network switch fabric system.

System, apparatus and method for address forwarding for a computer network

Method, apparatus and program storage device that provides a distributed file serving architecture with metadata storage virtualization and data access at the data server connection speed is provided. A host issues a file access request including data target locations. The file access request including data target locations is processed. Remote direct memory access (RDMA) channel endpoint connection are issued in response to the processing of the file access request. An RDMA transfer of the file-block data associated with the file access request is made directly between a memory at the host and a data server.

Distributed file serving architecture system with metadata storage virtualization and data access at the data server connection speed

A method and computing systems for refreshing objects stored by a Proxy cache server from Web content servers. The refresh is requested by the Proxy cache server only if the expiration date attached to a stored object has expired. The refresh of one object is requested by the Proxy cache server to the Web content server upon a request from the browser of a client device. Additionally, the Proxy cache server can send a Refresh_request command to the Web content servers applying to a list of objects for which the expiration date has expired. The refreshed objects are not sent by the Web content server if the last modified date has changed but rather if, and only if, the object content, identified by a signature, has been changed. This method and system have the advantage of offloading the computing resources involved for data transfer through the network connecting the servers.

System and method to refresh proxy cache server objects

A cache system and method in accordance with the invention includes a cache near the target devices and another cache at the requesting host side so that the data traffic across the computer network is reduced. A cache updating and invalidation method are described.

Cheh-Suei Yang

Papers

System, apparatus and method for address forwarding for a computer network

Caching system and method for a network storage system