Patent ID: 11929930
Assignee: ARISTA NETWORKS, INC.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 9:
10. A method of processing packets in a network element, the network element comprising a plurality of network interfaces and a data plane coupled to the plurality of network interfaces,
the plurality of network interfaces comprising a plurality of ingress interfaces and a plurality of egress interfaces, each of the plurality of ingress interfaces corresponding to an external queue (EQ) interface or a non-external queue (non-EQ) interface,
the data plane comprising: a plurality of external queues associated with ingress interfaces that correspond to EQ interfaces; a packet storage unit coupled to the plurality of external queues; and a packet switch unit external to and coupled to the packet storage unit,
the method comprising:
receiving a packet on one of the plurality of ingress interfaces of the network element, wherein
when the received packet is received on an ingress interface that corresponds to an EQ interface:
forwarding the received packet to the packet storage unit to enqueue the received packet on an external queue selected from among a plurality of external queues associated with said one of the ingress interfaces;
receiving the packet from the packet storage unit by signaling the external queue to provide the enqueued packet; and
forwarding the provided enqueued packet to one of the plurality of egress interfaces, and

when the received packet is received on an ingress interface that corresponds to a non-EQ interface:
determining whether the received packets is to be (1) forwarded without storing it or (2) stored prior to forwarding it; and
in response to determining that the received packets is to be forwarded without storing it, forwarding the received packet to one of the plurality of egress interfaces.