Cisco Technology, Inc.

Juniper Networks, Inc.

Arista Networks, Inc.

Cisco Systems Inc.

Netapp, Inc.

Anthony Joseph Li

William L Lynch

Sharad Mehrotra

Der-Hwa Gan

Peter Malcolm Barnes

David M Katz

Bruce Cole

Stuart G Phillips

Rex Emmanuel Fernando

Hasmit S Grover

Avneesh Sachdev

Nikhil Jayaram

Henk H W Smit

Clarence Filsfils

Jan Medved

Shraddha Hegde

John Galen Scudder

Jonathan C Barth

Ornan Alexander Gerstel

Pradosh Mohapatra

Bruce Alexander Wilford

Akash Renukadas Deshpande

Derek Man-Kit Yeung

David J Tsiang

George Suwala

Anthony J Bates

Nair Venugopal

Christian E Hopps

Prahlad Purohit

Rajagopalan M Ammanur

Bruce A Cole

Vishnu Pavan Kumar Beeram

Arthur Tung-Tak Leung, Jr

Amy Zhang

Yunxia Chen

Bruce Sherry

Satyajeet Randhawa

Antoni B Przygienda

Vidhyalakshmi Venkitakrishnan

Arthur Leung, Jr

Derek M Yeung

A disclosed computing device may include (1) a storage device configured to store a database that identifies states of nodes included in a network and (2) circuitry configured to (A) receive one or more packet fragments that account for at least one change made to a state of one of the nodes in a transaction, (B) identify, among the packet fragments, a transaction identifier corresponding to the transaction and an indication of a total number of packet fragments representing the transaction, and (C) update the database to account for the change upon ensuring receipt of all the packet fragments representing the transaction based at least in part on the transaction identifier and the indication. Various other devices, systems, and methods are also disclosed.

Devices, systems, and methods for updating remote databases via flooded packet fragments

Techniques described herein relate to a method for topology partition detection. Network devices within a network topology often share information to achieve desired network functionality. However, when a network topology becomes partitioned such that not all network devices are directly or indirectly connected to the other network devices, the information sharing may fail. Techniques described herein detect such network topology partitioning by analyzing information that represents the network topology, and the connections therein (e.g., a set of paths).

Topology partition detection

Techniques described herein relate to a method for computation of network flooding topologies. A flooding topology may refer to a subset of a network which can be utilized by a network device to limit the flooding of link state updates. The flooding topology may be determined by an area leader (i.e., a designated network device) of the network. Computation of the flooding topology may entail the iterative incorporation (or absorption) of nodes and edges of a first connected graph, representing network devices and interconnections of a network topology of the network, into a second connected graph representing the flooding topology.

Computation of network flooding topologies

A method and network device for embedded area abstraction. Specifically, the method and network device described herein implement the abstraction of one or more subareas of an area within a network implementing a link state protocol. Abstraction of a given subarea of a given area within a network may provide for routing using network devices in the given subarea without requiring that the network devices, in the complement of the given subarea within the given area, maintain link state information respective to the entire network topology of the given subarea.

Embedded area abstraction

One or more embodiments of the invention may relate to a method, and/or non-transitory computer readable medium including instructions, for distributing link state information. In one or more embodiments of the invention, the method includes building a link state database on a plurality of network devices; electing a leader from among the plurality of network devices; computing, by the leader, a flooding topology; encoding, by the leader, the flooding topology to obtain an encoded flooding topology; distributing, by the leader, the encoded flooding topology to other network devices of the plurality of network devices.

Dynamic flooding for link state protocols

Embodiments of the invention may relate to a method for routing protocol area abstraction. The method may include electing an area leader from among network devices; generating, by the area leader, an area representation node identifier associated with the first area; distributing, by the area leader, the area representation node identifier to area edge devices; receiving, from the area edge devices, second area link state packets (LSPs); generating, by the area leader and using the second area LSPs, an area representation node LSP that includes the area representation node identifier and area neighbor adjacencies; and distributing, by the area leader, the area representation node LSP to a plurality of network devices in a second area of the network. In response to receiving a copy of the area representation node LSP, each of the network devices in the second area may advertise an adjacency to an area representation node.

Area abstraction extensions to routing protocols

A consistency checker is configured to perform repairs to one or more multi-level dense tree metadata structures shared between volumes managed by a volume layer of a storage input/output (I/O) stack executing on one or more nodes of a cluster. The volumes include a parent volume and a snapshot and/or clone, wherein the snapshot/clone may be represented as an independent volume, and embodied as a respective read-only copy (snapshot) or read-write copy (clone) of the parent volume. Illustratively, the consistency checker verifies and/or fixes (i.e., repairs) on-disk structures of the volume layer, e.g., the shared dense tree, according to a distributed repair procedure that maintains consistency properties across all volumes in a volume family and avoid cyclic repairs made in the context of different volumes sharing the dense tree.

Shared dense tree repair

Graceful restart in routers having redundant routing facilities may be accomplished by replicating network (state/topology) information.

Routing protocols for accommodating nodes with redundant routing facilities

A method and an apparatus for rapidly resuming, at times of failures, network traffic in a connection-oriented network by using an alternative route pre-computed and stored locally in nodes along an initial route without requiring signaling of upstream nodes or a master server.

Method and apparatus for fast reroute in a connection-oriented network

A network device routes data packets by storing the packets in a switching memory as a function of a destination address of the packet. The switching memory comprises switching memory queues that are mapped to ports of the device. A header of a received packet is examined to determine the network destination address to which it is to be routed, and a destination queue is assigned to the packet based on the destination address. Thereafter, the packet is divided into cells, and the cells are written to contiguous locations in the destination queue.

Packet routing and switching device

In one embodiment, an operating system kernel and/or one or more processes of a high-availability system are modified while the system is operating and providing high-availability service. In accomplishing this, one embodiment uses a second virtual machine to operate a second operating system kernel including a second set of processes in the standby mode, which receive state information from corresponding process(es) in the active mode. Individually, the operating system kernel and processes within the second set of processes may be a same or different version of their counterpart in a first virtual machine and its processes which are being replaced. When the second set of processes have acquired sufficient state information to perform the standby role, the operation of the first virtual machine is typically ceased as the version modified second virtual machine is performing the version modified functionality of the first virtual machine.

Service version modification of a high-availability system

Diversity constraints with respect to connections or links in a client layer are conveyed to a server layer where those links or connections are served by paths in the server layer. A network device in the server layer stores data associated paths in the server layer with identifiers for connections in the client layer. The network device in the server layer receives from a network device in the client layer a request to set up a path in the server layer for a connection in the client layer. The network device in the server layer receives information describing the diversity requirements associated with connections in the client layer. The server layer network device computes a route in the server layer for the connection specified in the request based on the diversity requirements.

Client diversity policy sharing with the transport layer

Growing community of inventors

San Mateo, CA, United States of America

Anthony Joseph Li