Browsing by Author "Foss, Michael"

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    Method and system for scalable ethernet
    (2014-06-24) Rixner, Scott; Cox, Alan L.; Foss, Michael; Shafer, Jeffrey; Rice University; United States Patent and Trademark Office
    A computer readable medium comprising computer readable code for data transfer. The computer readable code, when executed, performs a method. The method includes receiving, at a first Axon, an ARP request from a source host directed to a target host. The method also includes obtaining a first route from the first Axon to the second Axon, and generating a target identification corresponding to the target host. The method further includes sending an Axon-ARP request to the second Axon using the first route, and receiving an Axon-ARP reply from the second Axon, where the Axon-ARP reply includes a second route. The method further includes storing the first route in storage space on the first Axon, where the storage space is indexed by the target identification, and sending an ARP reply to the first host where the source host is configured to send a packet to the target host.
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    The Axon Ethernet device
    (2010) Foss, Michael; Rixner, Scott
    Data centers are growing in importance since computation is moving from personal computers to the Internet. Data centers often use Ethernet as the network fabric; however Ethernet presents fundamental limitations to scalability. This work examines the design, implementation, and characterization of the Axon, a network device that overcomes Ethernet's scalability limitations while maintaining the simplicity of such devices. Axons use cut-through routing to reduce the latency of communication and source-routing both to eliminate the spanning tree and to reduce state within the network. Using just one redundant link in small network has been shown to give a 96% increase to UDP bandwidth and a 63% increase to TCP bandwidth. Experiments confirm that an Axon's latency is an order of magnitude faster than that of a store-and-forward switch in an uncongested network, thereby increasing the potential diameter and improving the scalability of an Ethernet network.