Routing & Switching
Dr. Lavian offers technical consulting services for routing protocols, routers, switch architecture and design, standards, and network protocols. His expertise in routing and switching includes communications systems, LAN, WAN, and networking infrastructure.
Dr. Lavian has conducted research in telecommunications, network communications, and Internet technologies. He designed software for switches, routers, and network communications equipment and developed systems and architectures for managing them. Dr. Lavian offers consulting services regarding routing, switching, and communication equipment architectures and design.
His research and development background covers the technical aspects of routing and switching within the broader contexts of network communications systems and Internet architecture and protocols.
A router is a networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks. The router switching fabric is the heart of the router; it connects the input and output ports. Router architecture is designed in such a way that the routers are equipped to perform two main functions:
Process routable protocols.
Use routing protocols to determine the best path.
Network infrastructure comprises the hardware and software resources that enable network connectivity, communication, operations, and management of enterprise and service provider networks. Therefore, It provides the communication path and services between users, processes, applications, services, and devices.
Network infrastructure is Telecomm NET’s primary area of practice, based on Dr. Lavian’s academic research at UC Berkeley and industry experience in product development at Nortel Networks.
Background
Dr. Lavian holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, specializing in network communications, and spent nearly 20 years researching, studying, and lecturing at UC Berkeley. He served as Principal Scientist and Principal Architect at Nortel Networks (1996–2007), where he designed routing and switching software for carrier-grade equipment, and as a DARPA Principal Investigator. Dr. Lavian has over 120 patents — many covering programmable forwarding engines and active network architectures — over 25 scientific publications, and has been retained in over 70 cases, including 80+ depositions, before U.S. federal courts, PTAB, ITC, and international tribunals. His routing and switching case work includes Trace Wilco v. Cisco (U.S. Patent Nos. 7,325,063 and 6,158,011, involving routing and network communication technologies), Juniper Networks v. Smart Path Connections (PTAB) (U.S. Patent Nos. 7,463,580 and 7,386,010, involving routing and switching systems), and Rockstar Technologies v. Cisco Systems (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,778,653 and 6,636,508, involving packet routing and switching).
Routers and Switches Hardware Technologies
Routers and switches are two networking hardware devices used to manage data flow within a computer network. Routers connect different networks and route data between them, while switches connect devices within a single network and direct data to its destination. Both routers and switches use specialized hardware and software to perform their functions.
Routers typically have several ports for connecting to other devices or networks and a built-in processor and memory for running the routing software. Some routers also have additional features, such as built-in firewalls and virtual private network (VPN) support. Switches also have multiple ports for connecting devices and a switching fabric that handles data flow within the switch. Some switches also have advanced features like Quality of Service (QoS) support and port aggregation.
Routers and switches are standard components of modern computer networks and are used to manage data flow between devices.
Routing and Switching Experience and Expertise
Drawing on experience in researching, designing, developing, and implementing real-world network software, Dr. Lavian’s expertise includes:
- Wired networking: core and edge routers, switches, load balancers, and SD-WAN.
- Wireless networking: Access Points, Wireless Controllers, and Data and Control Planes.
- Networking principles, software, and hardware architectures, ASIC, firmware, high-speed backplanes, switch fabric, control planes, data planes, blocking and non-blocking architectures, priority queuing, time-to-live, packet addressing, and routing/switching table structures.
- Routers, switches, gateways, routing and switching, IETF RFC standards that define relevant functional architectures, protocol specifications, and forwarding.
- Enterprise and service provider cable networks, such as modems, headend, and fiber optic DWDM infrastructure.
- Network Security: Firewalls, VPNs, IPSec, Tunneling, Content Filtering, and Security Gateways.
- Bandwidth throttling, Quality of Service, QoS, Priority queuing, and Traffic Classification.
- Network Management: MIBs, Traps, Logs, SNMP, FCAPS, Monitoring, and Troubleshooting.
- Industry standards: IETF, IEEE, ITU-T, 3GPP, Wi-Fi, ISO, and IEC.
- Communications protocols: TCP/IP, LDAP, IGMP, ARP, DNS, DHCP, RIP, IGRP, OSPF, GRE, BGP, and IS-IS.
- Cable communications protocols: DOCSIS and CATVS.
- OSI layers 1-7, including technologies and standards in product implementations.
- LAN and WAN technologies: IEEE 802.1, 802.3, 802.11, 802.15.
- Public switched telephone networks, circuit switching, SS7, SDH, and SONET.
- IPv4, IPv6, LAN, WAN, VPN, tunneling, routing protocols, RIP, BGP, MPLS, OSPF, multicast, DNS, QoS, switching, packet switching, layer-2 switching, layer-3 switching, layer-4 switching, application switching, load balancing, and firewalls.
Network Architecture
Networks may be wired or wireless. A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking eliminates cables and wires while providing the same capabilities as a wired network. There are two primary uses for wireless networking: private use within a single building or group of buildings and public use, for example, connecting to public access points, most often in urban areas. However, wireless networking is found in homes, enterprise campuses, and service provider carrier networks.
Moreover, The broadband cable network is a typical universally used internet-to-home technology. The term distinguishes old network architectures, especially the ’wired pair’ telephone line systems. Broadband cable has the infrastructure for delivering high-speed data and digital services to subscriber locations. It is sometimes described as ’always on’ because it uses a point-to-multipoint topology.
OSI Communication Layers
Computer Networks use the OSI model to allow hardware and software to communicate effectively. The OSI model is utilized to communicate, organize, and run information through the network. Therefore, This model lays out separate layers for networking functions such as flow control and error recovery. Layer 1 – Physical Layer; Layer 2 – Data Link; Layer 3 – Network; Layer 4 – Transport; Layer 5 – Session; Layer 6 – Presentation; and Layer 7 – Application. However, each model layer performs a specific function, allowing disparate hardware and software communications systems to interact effectively.
Frequently Asked Questions
What routing and switching protocols is Dr. Lavian expert in?
Dr. Lavian is expert in BGP (Border Gateway Protocol), OSPF, EIGRP, MPLS, IP routing tables, packet switching architectures, spanning tree protocol (STP), VLAN configurations, and software-defined networking (SDN) including OpenFlow.
Has Dr. Lavian testified in routing and switching patent cases?
Yes. Dr. Lavian has consulted in patent litigation involving routing and switching technologies at companies including Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks, Arista Networks, and other major networking equipment providers.
Can Dr. Lavian handle router patent cases for both plaintiff and defendant?
Yes. Dr. Lavian has been retained by both plaintiff and defendant parties in routing and switching patent cases, providing independent technical analysis based on his expertise and review of the relevant prior art and claim constructions.
What is Dr. Lavian’s industry experience with routing and switching hardware?
Dr. Lavian was a Senior Research Scientist at Nortel Networks (formerly Bay Networks) where he designed routing and switching software for enterprise and carrier-grade network equipment. He has invented 120+ patents, many covering programmable forwarding engines and active network architectures for routers and switches.
What types of routing and switching patent disputes has Dr. Lavian handled?
Dr. Lavian has handled patent disputes involving BGP route processing, MPLS label switching, packet classification engines, forwarding table implementations, TCAM-based lookups, network-on-chip switch fabrics, SDN controller architectures, and programmable network device pipelines.
Can Dr. Lavian testify on software-defined networking (SDN) patent cases?
Yes. Dr. Lavian’s expertise includes SDN architectures, OpenFlow protocol implementations, network function virtualization (NFV), programmable data planes, and SDN controller platforms. His research at UC Berkeley on programmable forwarding engines is directly relevant to SDN patent disputes.
For inquiries, contact Dr. Lavian at +1 (408) 209-9112 or via the contact page.