US 11,929,930 B2
System and method of a high buffered high bandwidth network element
Adam James Sweeney, San Jose, CA (US); and Hugh W. Holbrook, Palo Alto, CA (US)
Assigned to ARISTA NETWORKS, INC., Santa Clara, CA (US)
Filed by Arista Networks, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US)
Filed on Jul. 19, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/868,400.
Application 17/868,400 is a continuation of application No. 16/925,872, filed on Jul. 10, 2020, granted, now 11,425,041.
Application 16/925,872 is a continuation of application No. 15/187,732, filed on Jun. 20, 2016, granted, now 10,715,441, issued on Jul. 14, 2020.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/214,627, filed on Sep. 4, 2015.
Prior Publication US 2023/0006931 A1, Jan. 5, 2023
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. H04L 47/10 (2022.01); H04L 12/54 (2022.01); H04L 47/12 (2022.01); H04L 47/24 (2022.01); H04L 49/00 (2022.01); H04L 49/90 (2022.01); H04L 47/62 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 47/12 (2013.01) [H04L 47/24 (2013.01); H04L 47/29 (2013.01); H04L 49/9078 (2013.01); H04L 49/9089 (2013.01); H04L 47/6215 (2013.01)] 19 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause one or more processing units to perform a method to process a packet in a network element, the method comprising:
receiving a first packet, using a packet switch unit, wherein the first packet is received on an ingress interface of the network element corresponding to an externally queued (EQ) interface, wherein each ingress interface of the network element corresponds to an EQ interface or a non-EQ interface, wherein an incoming packet received at an ingress interface corresponding to an EQ interface is stored in one of a plurality of external queues;
forwarding the first packet to a packet storage unit, wherein the packet storage unit is external to and coupled to the packet switch unit;
receiving, the first packet from the packet storage unit;
forwarding the first packet to one of a plurality of egress interfaces corresponding to one of the plurality of external queues;
providing, from the packet switch unit, a flow control message to the packet storage unit to provide the first packet from the one of the plurality of external queues that stores the first packet to the packet switch unit;
receiving a second packet, using the packet switch unit, wherein the second packet is received on a different ingress interface of the network element corresponding to a non-EQ interface; and
determining whether the second packet is to be forwarded without storing, and
upon determining the second packet is to be forwarded without storing, forwarding the second packet to one of the plurality of egress interfaces determined based on information in the second packet.