Patent ID: 11924088
Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 10:
11. A system comprising:
a plurality of servers;
at least two switches; and
a plurality of data cables each having a switching device,
the servers communicatively coupled to network interfaces of the switches using the plurality of data cables, the switch devices configured to switch communication paths between the switches, each of the data cables communicatively coupling the switches to one of the plurality of servers so that each of the servers has a communications path to each of the switches and a switchable communications path from each of the switches,
wherein the switch device of a first data cable connects a first network interface to a first communicatively coupled server when the communication path from a first of the switches to a first of the communicatively coupled servers is determined to be valid, the communication path corresponding to a first of the data cables connecting a first network interface to the first communicatively coupled server;
the switches configured to:
send, by the first switch, a request packet is in accordance with a network protocol;
send, by a second of the switches, a request packet in accordance with the network protocol;
receive, by the first and second switches, a reply packet from the first communicatively coupled server, wherein the reply packet is generated in accordance with the network protocol in response to the request packet sent by the first switch based on the first data cable connecting the first network interface to the first communicatively coupled server;
based on data contained in the reply packet indicating that the request packet sent by the first switch was acknowledged in accordance with the network protocol, determine, by the first switch, that the first switch is an active switch; and
based on its status as the active switch, forward, by the first switch to the first communicatively coupled server, tunneled data packets received from the second switch.