Patent ID: 9020347
Filing Date: 2015-04-28
Classification: H04Q

Abstract:
1. A network node for use in a network initially having a point-to-point (P2P) network topology, comprising: a configurable electrical circuit switch; optical-to-electrical converters, coupled to the configurable electrical circuit switch, configured to convert input optical signals received via input optical links into input electrical signals provided to the configurable electrical circuit switch, wherein the input electrical signals include input packets; electrical-to-optical converters, coupled to the configurable electrical circuit switch, configured to convert output electrical signals received from the configurable electrical circuit switch into output optical signals provided to output optical links, wherein the output electrical signals include output packets; a router coupled to the configurable electrical circuit switch; terminals, which can include sources of data and/or sinks of data, coupled to the router; and control logic, coupled to the configurable electrical circuit switch, configured to reconfigure the configurable electrical circuit switch to implement a predefined network topology other than the P2P network topology based on information in one of the input packets and the output packets, wherein the predefined network topology has a node-to-node bandwidth exceeding that of a node-to-node bandwidth of the P2P network topology.