Claims
- 1. A storage network switch, comprising:
a switch fabric subsystem; an input-output subsystem coupled to said switch fabric subsystem; an application subsystem coupled to said switch fabric subsystem; and a system control subsystem coupled to said switch fabric subsystem, said input-output subsystem and said application subsystem.
- 2. The storage network switch of claim 1, future comprising a plurality of input-output subsystems coupled to said switch fabric subsystem.
- 3. The storage network switch of claim 1, future comprising a plurality of application subsystems coupled to said switch fabric subsystem.
- 4. The storage network switch of claim 1, wherein said input-output subsystem is adapted for coupling to external network devices.
- 5. The storage network switch of claim 1, where in said switch fabric subsystem comprises a plurality of switch devices, each of the plurality of switch devices having a plurality of ingress ports and a plurality of egress ports.
- 6. The storage network switch of claim 5, wherein the plurality of ingress ports and the plurality of egress ports are differential signal ports.
- 7. The storage network switch of claim 6, wherein a one of the plurality of ingress ports is paired with a respective one of the plurality of egress ports.
- 8. The storage network switch of claim 7, wherein a pair of ingress and egress ports are coupled to said input-output subsystem.
- 9. The storage network switch of claim 7, wherein a pair of ingress and egress ports are coupled to said application subsystem.
- 10. The storage network switch of claim 7, wherein a plurality of pairs of ingress and egress ports are coupled to said input-output subsystem for redundancy.
- 11. A storage network system comprising:
a host; an ingress line card coupled to said host; a storage device; an egress line card coupled to said storage device; and a system card coupled to said ingress line card and to said egress line card; wherein the couplings enable signals from said host to said storage device to travel in any one of multiple paths.
- 12. The storage network system of claim 11, wherein said ingress line card has at least one network processor.
- 13. The storage network system of claim 12, wherein said egress line card has at least one network processor.
- 14. The storage network system of claim 13, wherein if said network processor on said ingress line card can process a signal received from said host, then sending said signal to said network processor of said egress line card, said network processor of said egress line card then forwarding said signal to said storage device.
- 15. The storage network system of claim 14, said switch further comprising a switch fabric coupled to said ingress line card and said egress line card, wherein said ingress line card processor sends said signal to said egress line card via said switch fabric.
- 16. The storage network system of claim 14, wherein said ingress line card has a line card processor.
- 17. The storage network system of claim 16, wherein said egress line card has a line card processor.
- 18. A storage network system comprising:
a host; an ingress line card coupled to said host; a storage device; an egress line card coupled to said storage device; an application blade; an application line card coupled to said application blade; a system card coupled to said ingress line card, to said egress line card, and to said application line card; and a switch fabric coupled to said ingress line card, to said egress line card, and to said application line card.
- 19. The storage network system of claim 18, wherein said ingress line card has at least one network processor.
- 20. The storage network system of claim 19, wherein said egress line card has at least one network processor.
- 21. The storage network system of claim 20, wherein if said network processor on said ingress line card can process a signal received from said host, then sending said signal to said network processor of said egress line card via said switch fabric, said network processor of said egress line card then forwarding said signal to said storage device.
- 22. The storage network system of claim 21, wherein said ingress line card has a line card processor.
- 23. The storage network system of claim 22, wherein said egress line card has a line card processor.
- 24. The storage network system of claim 23, wherein said application line card has a line card processor.
- 25. The storage network system of claim 24, wherein said application blade has at least one application processor.
- 26. The storage network system of claim 25, wherein if said signal from said host cannot be processed with said network processor of said ingress line card, then sending said signal to said line card processor of said ingress line card.
- 27. The storage network system of claim 26, wherein if said line card processor of said ingress line card can process said signal, then processing said signal to generate a processed signal with said line card processor of said ingress line card and returning said processed signal to said network processor of said ingress line card, and forwarding said processed signal back to said host.
- 28. The storage network system of claim 27, wherein if said line card processor of said ingress line card cannot process said signal, then forwarding said signal to said system card, said system card then processing said signal to generate a processed signal, said system card then forwarding said processed signal to said line card processor of said ingress line card, said line card processor of said ingress line card then forwarding said processed signal to said network processor of said ingress line card, said network processor of said ingress line card then forwarding said processed signal to said host.
- 29. The storage network switch of claim 28, further comprising a network controller coupled to the processor interface and memory controller.
- 30. The storage network switch of claim 29, wherein the least one network controller is configured for an Ethernet network.
- 31. The storage network switch of claim 1, wherein said system control subsystem comprises:
a system control processor; a processor interface and memory controller having at least one input-output bus, the processor interface and memory controller is coupled to the system control processor; a memory coupled to the processor interface and memory controller; a redundancy control coupled to the processor interface and memory controller; and a plurality of network controllers coupled to the at least one input-output bus of the processor interface and memory controller.
- 32. The storage network switch of claim 31, wherein the plurality of network controllers are configured for an Ethernet network.
- 33. A scalable switch fabric system for computer networks, said system comprising:
at least one input-output subsystem coupled to at least one computer network; a switch fabric subsystem coupled to said at least one input-output subsystem; an application subsystem coupled to said switch fabric subsystem; and a system control subsystem coupled to said switch fabric subsystem, said input-output subsystem and said application subsystem.
- 34. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 33, wherein said at least one input-output subsystem comprises:
an ingress line card having an ingress switch fabric interface coupled to said switch fabric subsystem; and an egress line card having an egress switch fabric interface coupled to said switch fabric subsystem.
- 35. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 34, wherein the ingress line card comprises:
a plurality of ingress network processors; an ingress bridge coupled between the plurality of ingress network processors and the ingress switch fabric interface; and an ingress line card processor coupled to the plurality of ingress network processors.
- 36. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 35, wherein each of the plurality of ingress network processors has an executive processor and a fabric coprocessor.
- 37. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 35, further comprising an ingress network controller.
- 38. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 37, wherein the ingress network controller is configured for an Ethernet network.
- 39. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 34, wherein the egress line card comprises:
a plurality of egress network processors; an egress bridge coupled between the plurality of egress network processors and the egress switch fabric interface; and an egress line card processor coupled to the plurality of egress network processors.
- 40. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 39, wherein each of the plurality of egress network processors has an executive processor and a fabric coprocessor.
- 41. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 39, further comprising an egress network controller.
- 42. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 41, wherein the egress network controller is configured for an Ethernet network.
- 43. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 33, wherein said system control subsystem comprises a system control card having a system control card processor and a system control card network controller.
- 44. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 43, wherein the system control card network controller is configured for an Ethernet network.
- 45. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 33, wherein said application subsystem comprises:
at least one application processor; an application memory coupled to the at least one application processor; and an application switch fabric interface coupled between the at least one application processor and said switch fabric subsystem.
- 46. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 45, further comprising an application processor network controller.
- 47. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 46, wherein the application processor network controller is configured for an Ethernet network.
- 48. The scalable switch fabric system of claim 33, wherein a plurality of input-output subsystems and a plurality of application systems are configured to be redundant.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ [attorney docket number 069099.0104/client reference 106-02] entitled “System and Method for Scalable Switch Fabric for Computer Network” by [name inventors], which is being filed contemporaneously with the present application and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. This application is also related to previously filed and pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/738,960, entitled “Caching System and Method for a Network Storage System” by Lin-Sheng Chiou, Mike Witkowski, Hawkins Yao, Cheh-Suei Yang, and Sompong Paul Olarig, which was filed on Dec. 14, 2000 and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/015,047 [attorney docket number 069099.0102/B2] entitled “System, Apparatus and Method for Address Forwarding for a Computer Network” by Hawkins Yao, Cheh-Suei Yang, Richard Gunlock, Michael L. Witkowski, and Sompong Paul Olarig, which was filed on Oct. 26, 2001 and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/039,190 [attorney docket number 069099.0105/B5] entitled “Network Processor Interface System” by Sompong Paul Olarig, Mark Lyndon Oelke, and John E. Jenne, which was filed on Dec. 31, 2001, and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/039,189 [attorney docket number 069099.0106/B6-A] entitled “Xon/Xoff Flow Control for Computer Network” by Hawkins Yao, John E. Jenne, and Mark Lyndon Oelke, which was filed on Dec. 31, 2001, and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/039,184 [attorney docket number 069099.0107/B6-B] entitled “Buffer to Buffer Flow Control for Computer Network” by John E. Jenne, Mark Lyndon Oelke and Sompong Paul Olarig, which was filed on Dec. 31, 2001, and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/117,418 [attorney docket number 069099.0109/(client reference 115-02)], entitled “System and Method for Linking a Plurality of Network Switches,” by Ram Ganesan Iyer, Hawkins Yao and Michael Witkowski, which was filed Apr. 5, 2002 and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/117,040 [attorney docket number 069099.0111/(client reference 135-02)], entitled “System and Method for Expansion of Computer Network Switching System Without Disruption Thereof,” by Mark Lyndon Oelke, John E. Jenne, Sompong Paul Olarig, Gary Benedict Kotzur and Matthew John Schumacher, which was filed Apr. 5, 2002 and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/117,266 [attorney docket number 069099.0112/(client reference 220-02)], entitled “System and Method for Guaranteed Link Layer Flow Control,” by Hani Ajus and Chung Dai, which was filed Apr. 5, 2002 and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/117,638 [attorney docket number 069099.0113/(client reference 145-02)], entitled Fibre Channel Implementation Using Network Processors,” by Hawkins Yao, Richard Gunlock and Po-Wei Tan, which was filed Apr. 5, 2002 and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/117,290 [attorney docket number 069099.0114/(client reference 230-02)], entitled “Method and System for Reduced Distributed Event Handling in a Network Environment,” by Ruotao Huang and Ram Ganesan Iyer, which was filed Apr. 5, 2002 and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ [attorney docket number 069099.0115/(client reference 225-02)], entitled “System and Method for Allocating Unique Zone Membership,” by Walter Bramhall and Ruotag Huang, which was filed Apr. 15, 2002 and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ [attorney docket number 069099.0108/(client reference 140-02)], entitled “System and Method for Load Sharing Computer Network Switch,” by Mark Lyndon Oelke, John E. Jenne and Sompong Paul Olarig, which was filed Apr. 22, 2002 and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes.