Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (publ)

Avaya Inc.

Avoy Nanda

Kunal R Shah

Anubhav Gupta

Kunal Pankaj Shah

Roger Lapuh

Avinash Sridharan

Wassim Tawbi

Veluchamy Dinakaran

Behfar Azimi

Ruchi Vats

A multicast router is coupled with a multicast enabled layer 2 device that is coupled with a source of multicast data traffic for multicast groups. Responsive to determining that the amount of bandwidth currently being attributed as being used by the subscriber exceeds its allowed bandwidth limit due to oversubscription of multicast groups, the multicast router switches from periodically transmitting multicast membership general query messages to the multicast hosts of the subscriber, to transmitting one or more multicast membership group-specific query messages to one or more multicast hosts of the subscriber for a subset of the subscribed multicast groups to impede the subscribed multicast groups that are not part of the subset from being refreshed to cause the multicast data traffic for those multicast groups from being transmitted on the access network to the multicast hosts of the subscriber.

Reducing access network congestion caused by oversubscription of multicast groups

A method performed in a network element coupled between a subscriber end station and a multicast source for tracking a history of IGMP report messages. The network element receives and IGMP report message from the subscriber end station and determines a multicast group address and multicast source IP address corresponding to a multicast group to which the network element is a member. The network element builds an IGMP report history record indicating the subscriber end station's identity and comprises the multicast group address, the multicast source IP address, and a time stamp corresponding to the date and time at which the network element received the IGMP report message. This record is then stored in an IGMP report history database along with a plurality of other IGMP report history records so that the network element can maintain a history of IGMP report messages received from the subscriber end station.

Mechanism for tracking host participation in multicast groups

a method for reducing computational and/or bandwidth requirements in a network including a multicast router and a layer 2 network element by efficiently communicating required source state information. The method comprises receiving at the layer 2 network element a source interest list from a host over a multicast network. The layer 2 multicast network element transmits a message to the multicast router, the message formatted to be processed by a multicast routing protocol on the multicast router after a protocol header is removed by a light host management protocol on the multicast router without any additional processing. Responsive to receiving the message at the multicast router, the light host management protocol removes the protocol header and sending the message to the multicast routing protocol to alter a set of multicast sources to be routed to the host.

Light host management protocol on multicast capable router

A network node includes a primary incoming interface, a secondary incoming interface and a data flow control unit. The primary incoming interface is operable to receive traffic associated with a particular source and multicast group. The secondary incoming interface is operable to serve as a backup interface if the primary incoming interface or a transmission path coupled to the primary incoming interface is inoperative. The data flow control unit is operable to determine whether the network node is part of a ring topology and if so, forward traffic received on the primary incoming interface associated with the source and multicast group to both a host which joined the multicast group and the secondary incoming interface and forward traffic received on the secondary incoming interface associated with the source and multicast group to the primary incoming interface.

Multicast dual join for ring network topologies

A method reduces computational and/or bandwidth requirements of multicast routing by efficiently communicating required source state information. The method comprises receiving at a first network element, executing a modified host management protocol, a source interest list from a host over a network, the source interest list identifies at least one multicast source to be one of excluded or included from routing to the host. The modified host management protocol identifies a difference between the source interest list and a source state maintained by the first network element. The modified host management protocol provides the difference between the source interest list and the source state and not an entirety of the source interest list to a multicast routing protocol to alter the set of multicast sources to be routed to the host.

Efficient host management protocol on multicast capable router

A method and apparatus of dynamically distributing multicast stream to different hosts on a link-aggregation-group is described. A network element receives, on a link-aggregation-group, multicast requests and determines the bandwidth for that request by the information stored in the request. The network element further allocates bandwidth requirement on the least utilized link in link-aggregation-group. The network element additionally updates a forwarding table to indicate that the multicast stream in that request is to be forward out the allocated link.

Driven  multicast traffic distribution on link-aggregate-group

Multicast traffic may be routed using DVMRP or PIM over a Split MultiLink Trunk (SMLT). Network elements on the split side of the SMLT are interconnected by an Inter-Switch Trunk (IST) to enable them to exchange control messages associated with the multicast. When a control message is received on the IST, the network element will determine if the multicast control message is associated with a normal multicast or is associated with multicast over an SMLT link. Control messages related to SMLT links will be processed as if they were received over the SMLT link rather than the IST link. To prevent traffic from being forwarded by multiple network elements over the SMLT link, data traffic from an IST link may not be transmitted over an SMLT link. Flags are used to indicate whether a link is a SMLT link or regular link. Fast recovery may occur by causing participants to transmit triggered join messages upon recovery from a failure.

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Milpitas, CA, United States of America

Avoy Nanda