JPH0298246A - Packet exchange - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To attain the multiple address of a packet even in a general terminal interface without the need of any exclusive terminal interface circuit for multiple address by storing multiple address instruction information representing the presence of multiple address packet and setting the multiple address instruction information by a control processor when the information representing the implementation of multiple address is received from a terminal equipment. CONSTITUTION:A packet switch circuit 40 applying switching of a packet is provided and a switching header addition circuit 50 adds a header 52 to a packet to form an internal packet transferred in the inside of an exchange. A control processor 100 controls circuits such as the packet switch circuit, the switching header addition circuit 50 and a terminal interface circuit 10 and when a terminal equipment 1 sends information representing the implementation of the multiple address together with a message, the information is received from a packet conversion circuit 11 to set a multiple address storage memory 55. Thus, it is not required to provide a terminal interface circuit exclusive for use of multiple address and the multiple address processing is implemented.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a packet switch, and particularly to a packet switch having a broadcast function.

(Prior Art) Some packet switching devices have a broadcasting function that sends packets with the same content to multiple destination terminals. For example, messages that arrive from a transmitting terminal connected to a terminal interface circuit that issues broadcast instructions are assembled into packets inside the exchange in this terminal interface circuit, and then sent to the transmitting terminal by hardware or firmware within this interface circuit. Information instruction information is added to this and multiplexed. At the beginning of this packet, a switching header adding circuit of the exchange adds data necessary for switching the packet to the other party in the packet switch circuit of the exchange as a header. If the broadcast instruction information is added to this header as described above, the packet, which is the message from the transmitting terminal, is output to all output sides of the packet switch circuit.

(Problem to be Solved by the Invention) However, in the device with the above configuration, it is necessary to change the hardware or software in the terminal interface circuit depending on whether or not to broadcast the data of each transmitting terminal, and it is necessary to change the hardware or software in the terminal interface circuit. Whether or not to broadcast is fixedly determined by the hardware or firmware in the terminal interface circuit. Therefore, when a terminal is connected to a terminal interface circuit that performs broadcasting, the use of that terminal is limited to broadcasting only. There was a problem with putting it away.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to overcome the drawbacks of the prior art and to provide a packet switch capable of performing broadcast processing without requiring a terminal interface circuit dedicated to broadcasting.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the above problems, the present invention accommodates a plurality of terminals, converts messages sent from the terminals into packets, and broadcasts the converted packets. The functional packet switching equipment has a storage means for storing broadcast instruction information indicating whether or not to broadcast packets, and sets the broadcast instruction information in the storage means when receiving information from a terminal that broadcasting is to be performed. It has a control means, and an addition means that receives the packet and the broadcast instruction information of this packet set in the storage means, respectively, and adds this broadcast instruction information to this packet.

Further, according to the present invention, a packet switching equipment that accommodates a plurality of terminals, converts messages sent from the terminals into packets, and has a broadcast function of broadcasting the converted packets,
A packet conversion means for converting a message received from a terminal into a packet, a storage means for storing broadcast instruction information indicating whether or not a packet is to be broadcast, and a terminal configured to set the terminal as a terminal for broadcasting based on the accommodation position of the terminal. control means for identifying whether the terminal is a broadcast terminal, and setting broadcast instruction information in the storage means if the terminal is a broadcast terminal; and adding means for receiving the broadcast instruction information and adding the broadcast instruction information to the packet.

(Function) According to the present invention, for example, when setting up a call, the control means sets the presence or absence of broadcast in the storage means. When a call is generated from a terminal, the control means determines whether or not to broadcast the call, and in the case of broadcasting, sets this in the storage means as broadcast instruction information.0The generated call is stored as a packet in the addition means. The broadcast instruction information of this packet, which is sent and set in the storage means, is also sent to the addition means. Then, the adding means adds broadcast instruction information to this packet, and if the broadcast instruction information indicates broadcast, this packet is broadcast.

(Embodiment) Next, an embodiment of a packet switch according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1, the packet switch of this embodiment includes a packet switch circuit 4 that performs packet switching.
0, which houses one or more switching header addition circuits 50. The switching header addition circuit 50 is a bucket (described later) 14 (second bucket).
This circuit forms an internal packet packet 22 (FIG. 3) that is transferred within the exchange by adding a header 52 to the packet data (FIG. 3).

One or more terminal interface circuits 10 are accommodated on the input side of the header addition circuit 50. The terminal interface circuit IO accommodates a plurality of terminals l on its input side, and is a circuit that assembles signals or messages from the terminal l into packets and multiplexes them.The terminal 1 in this embodiment can be connected to a packet switch. It is a normal communication terminal, and when sending a message, it broadcasts or specifies the desired destination terminal.

Each of these circuits of this exchange is controlled by a control processor 100, and realizes various functions as a packet exchange. In addition, in Figure 1.

The functions up to switching the signal from the terminal 1 as a packet in the packet switch circuit 40 are shown.

Functional parts for sending switched packets to trunk lines and other terminals are not shown in the figure because they are not directly relevant to the understanding of the present invention; however, like ordinary packet switching equipment, this switching equipment also has these functions. Needless to say, there are.

The terminal interface circuit 10 has a packet conversion circuit 11 corresponding to the terminal 1. The same circuit 11 connects each terminal l, divides the message input from terminal 1 into data of a predetermined number of bits, and divides each data into terminal number 1B (second
It has a packet assembling function that converts the packet into a packet 14 by adding the following information (see the figure). The conversion circuit 11 is also connected to the control processor 100 via a signal line 110 and is connected to the connected terminal 1.
The control processor 100 is notified of the presence or absence of the broadcast received at the time of call setup. A plurality of packet conversion circuits 11 are accommodated in a multiplexer 13, and the multiplexer 13 converts packets N4 from each packet conversion circuit 11 into one packet in a predetermined order.
This is a multiplexing circuit that reads the data one by one and puts it on the highway 15.

The switching header addition circuit 50 is a circuit that converts the packet 14 from the highway 15 into the format of the internal packet 22 (FIG. 3) under the control of the control processor 100. The circuit 50 has a buffer 21, which is a memory that temporarily stores packets. In this embodiment, the header addition circuit 50 has a switching holding memory 5 and a broadcast holding memory 55 as shown in the first factor, and the readout outputs of both memories are accommodated at the input side of the multiplexer 27 along with that of the buffer 21. has been done.

The switching header holding memory 51 stores the switching header 5, which is control data, in a storage location corresponding to each terminal l.
This is a memory that stores 2 and so on. At the time of call setup, the control processor 200 sets control data in the memory location of the calling terminal l. As a result, the switching lag 52, which is the control data necessary for sending to the destination, and the destination terminal number 24 (FIG. 3) of the bag N4 are written as needed in the zero broadcast holding memory 55 as well. This is a memory that stores the presence or absence of broadcasting in a storage location corresponding to terminal l.

When information indicating that broadcasting is to be performed is sent from terminal l at the time of call setup, control processor 100 sets broadcasting instruction information 52 indicating that broadcasting is "present" in the storage location of terminal l that made the call.

The multiplexer 27 assembles the switching header 52 stored by the processor 100 and the broadcast instruction information 54 set by the processor 100 into the format of the packet 22 shown in FIG. 3, and outputs it to the packet switch circuit 40 via the highway 37.

The packet switch circuit 40 switches the header 2 of the packet 22.
This is a switch circuit that performs switching depending on the day. In other words, the switch circuit 40 indicates that the broadcast instruction information 54 is "present".
is shown, packet 22 is sent to all output terminals.
If the broadcast instruction information 54 indicates "absence", the packet input to the output terminal indicated by the switching ladder 52 is switched.

The control processor 100 includes a packet switch circuit 40,
This is a functional unit that controls each circuit inside the exchange, such as the switching header addition circuit 50 and the terminal interface circuit IO, to realize a packet switching function. Particularly relevant to the present invention is the setting function of the broadcast holding memory 55. More specifically, the processor 100, for example, when the terminal l sends out information indicating that it will broadcast the message along with the message, the processor 100
This information is received from the packet conversion circuit 11 and the broadcast holding memory 55 is set, that is, the processor 100
sets the broadcast instruction information 54 indicating that the broadcast is "present" in the storage location of the terminal l that sent this message. As described above, in this embodiment, the settings for broadcasting are not made by the terminal interface circuit 10, but are made by the control processor 100 in accordance with the information sent from the terminal l. For example, if the terminal
If the processor 100 does not transmit information indicating that a broadcast will be performed at the time of message transmission, the processor 100 sets the broadcast instruction information 54 of "no broadcast" in the broadcast holding memory 55.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained. For example, when setting up a call for the terminal IA, the control processor 100 controls the packet conversion circuit 1
1 also knows the message destination of the terminal IA and whether or not it is broadcast. When the control processor 100 learns that the terminal IA broadcasts a message, for example, it stores a predetermined switching header 52 in the storage location of the terminal IA in the switching header holding memory 51, and stores the predetermined switching header 52 in the storage location of the terminal IA in the broadcast holding memory 55. Broadcast instruction information 54 of "Yes" for broadcasting is set in the storage location.

The message from the terminal IA is converted by the packet conversion circuit 11 into a bucket (14) (Fig. 2) inside the exchange, multiplexed by the multiplexer 13, and sent to the highway 15.
is sent to the switching header addition circuit 50. The switching additional circuit 50 receives packet 1 from the terminal IA.
4, it is stored in the buffer 21, and the switching header 52 and broadcast instruction information 54 are read from the storage locations of the terminal IA in the switching header holding memory 51 and the broadcast holding memory 55, respectively. The switching header 52 and broadcast instruction information 54 are sent to the terminal IA stored in the buffer 21.
bucket) 14 to the multiplexer 27.

When the multiplexer 27 receives the switching header 52, the broadcast instruction information 54, and the bucket) 14, the multiplexer 27 sends the ladder 52 and the broadcast instruction information 54 to the switching packet 1.
4 to form the packet 22, which is sent to the packet switch circuit 40 via the highway 37.

When the packet switch circuit 40 receives the packet 22, the switch circuit 40 converts the header 28 added to the packet.
In the case of the 0-wire operation example in which switching is performed by , the broadcast instruction information indicates that broadcast is "present", so the packet 22 is output to all output lights regardless of the contents of the switching ladder 52.

Note that in this embodiment, the switching header 51 and the broadcast holding memory 55 are provided separately.

A similar effect can be expected even if these are integrated into one holding memory and broadcast display is added to the switching header holding memory 51.

In addition, in this embodiment, the presence or absence of broadcasting is received along with the message from terminal l, and this is used to decide whether or not to broadcast the message. The control processor may set the broadcast instruction information based on this type. In this case, if the terminal l is a broadcast terminal that is used only for broadcast, the data setting is not performed. For example, the operator can save the trouble of inputting the presence or absence of broadcasting along with the message each time. Of course, in this case, it is assumed that the broadcast terminal type can be easily changed by, for example, a command operation.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, the packet switching device according to the present invention has the following features:
In order to set the broadcast instruction information by the control processor,
Packet broadcasting can be performed using a general terminal interface circuit without requiring a terminal interface circuit dedicated to broadcasting. Furthermore, since there is no need to add broadcast instruction information to the terminal interface circuit, the terminal interface circuit can be made smaller and lighter, and the cost performance of the terminal interface circuit is improved. Furthermore, since terminals can be connected to the terminal interface circuit without being aware of whether or not the connected terminal is a broadcast terminal, the system construction of the packet switching system is facilitated.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a relay system diagram showing an embodiment of the packet switch of the present invention, and FIGS. 2 and 3 are diagrams showing the format of buckets appearing in each part of the switch shown in FIG. 1G. 20゜51゜55゜Part No.6 Terminal interface circuit Switching header Additional circuit Switching header holding memory Broadcast holding memory Control processor

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A packet switch that accommodates a plurality of terminals, converts messages sent from the terminals into packets, and has a broadcast function of broadcasting the converted packets, the switch: a storage means for storing broadcast instruction information indicating whether or not the packet is to be broadcast; a control means for setting the broadcast instruction information in the storage means when receiving information from the terminal indicating that the packet will be broadcast; A packet switching device comprising: an addition means for receiving the packet and broadcast instruction information of the packet set in the storage means, and adding the broadcast instruction information to the packet. 2. In a packet switch that accommodates a plurality of terminals and has a broadcast function of converting messages sent from the terminals into packets and broadcasting the converted packets, the switch can: a packet converting means for converting the packet into a packet; a storage means for storing broadcast instruction information indicating whether or not the packet is to be broadcast; control means for identifying whether the terminal is a broadcasting terminal and setting the broadcasting instruction information in the storage means if the terminal is a broadcasting terminal; 1. A packet switching device comprising: an addition means for receiving instruction information and adding the broadcast instruction information to the packet.