Cisco Technology, Inc.

Chandrashekhar Appanna

Anantha Ramaiah

Keyur Patel

Ruchi D Kapoor

Amol Khare

John Galen Scudder

Lester Bird

Satish Mynam

Ali Sajassi

Stefano Benedetto Previdi

Michael R Smith

Dileep Kumar Devireddy

Pradeep Kumar Kathail

Doron Shoham

Saravanakumar Rajendran

David J Tsiang

Jeffrey Ym Wang

Mitesh Dalal

Amir Michaeli

David Delano Ward

John Harper

Van L Jacobson

Abhay Kumar Roy

Himanshu H Shah

Prashant Gandhi

Robert Raszuk

Frederick Juergens Baker

Suran Saminda De Silva

Gargi Nalawade

Kenneth A Moberg

Andrew J Valencia

Claude Alan Cartee

Kathleen Nichols

Martin Djernaes

Barry Friedman

Shyam Suri

Siva Yaragalla

Anatha Ramaiah

David Tsiang

Michael Smith

Systems and/or methods that facilitate the segmentation of layer 3 (L3) data to more than one virtual private network (VPN) or virtual network (vNET) are presented. An application classifier component can be used to facilitate the classification of L2 to and from hosts and/or other networking components that are attached to a network based on the type of application with which the network traffic is associated. The innovation associates multiple Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) with the same L2 forwarding table ahead of bridging into shadow VLANs (SVLANs) which can be associated with different L3 vNETs. The application classifier component can classify data traffic at the switch port through Switching Virtual Interfaces (SVIs) into SVLANs which can be associated with different L3 vNETs. Each vNET can be optimized and provide services specific to which type of application in which the vNET is associated.

Shared L2 bridging domains for L3 virtual networks

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving, by a first autonomous system border router (ASBR) of a first autonomous system (AS), a first plurality of provider-provisioned media access control (B-MAC) addresses via Interior Border Gateway Protocol (I-BGP). Each of first plurality of B-MAC addresses is associated with a provider edge (PE) device of the first AS. The first ASBR sends the first plurality of B-MAC addresses to a second ASBR of a second AS using Exterior Border Gateway Protocol (E-BGP). The first ASBR also receives via E-BGP a second plurality of B-MAC addresses each of which is associated with a PE device of the second AS. The first ASBR then distributes the second plurality of B-MAC addresses to each of the PE devices of the first AS using I-BGP.

Intra-domain and inter-domain bridging over MPLS using MAC distribution via border gateway protocol

A method of transferring application layer network information comprises the computer-implemented steps of electronically transferring, from a first electronic digital data processor to a second electronic digital data processor, one or more transport layer connections associated with one or more application layer sessions; creating and sending, to the second processor, one or more application layer messages that appear to initiate a new application session with a peer; creating and sending, to the second processor, one or more application update messages that transfer application data from the first processor to the second processor; repeating the creating and sending steps for all application layer sessions that are active at the first processor. One embodiment provides stateful switchover of BGP sessions when one BGP host in a redundant system restarts asynchronously with respect to another host, without problems associated with bulk transfer of BGP route information.

Method and apparatus for transferring BGP state information during asynchronous startup

A system and method supporting efficient, scalable stateful switchover of transport layer connections in a telecommunications network element. One method involves receiving, at a network element comprising an active transport protocol process coupled to a standby protocol process, a request to configure a first transport layer connection maintained at the active transport protocol process for stateful switchover; receiving an event associated with the first transport layer connection; creating a message containing replicated event information based on the received event; sending the message to the standby transport protocol process; and processing the message at the standby transport protocol process, wherein the standby transport protocol process replicates state information for the first connection.

High availability transport protocol method and apparatus

A blade router for increased interface scalability is provided. The blade router may address interface scalability by having each of the linecards manage its interfaces locally and may use the concept of virtual and local interfaces for intelligent forwarding. The blade router may appear as a single router from the customer perspective during configuration. For some embodiments, two virtual interfaces may be used, one for regular interface traffic and another for Network Address Translation (NAT)-enabled interface traffic.

Blade router with NAT support

A blade switch for increased interface scalability is provided. The blade switch may address interface scalability by having each of the switch linecards manage its interfaces locally and may use the concept of virtual and local interfaces for intelligent forwarding. The blade switch may appear as a single network switch having a single bridge ID from the network perspective during operation and from the customer perspective during configuration.

Blade switch with scalable interfaces

A checkpointing approach enables BGP peers to reduce the number of UPDATE messages that are exchanged and processed after a router restarts. A router receives update messages to update routing information for the one or more other devices, wherein each of the update messages includes a checkpoint marker and a route. The router stores the route in a checkpoint repository and stores the checkpoint markers in association with information identifying the other routers from which the checkpoint markers were received. In response to a restart event, the router sends each of the stored checkpoint markers to respective other devices and receives from the respective other devices only route updates that occurred later in time than the checkpoint markers.

Fast border gateway protocol synchronization

A method for detecting unavailable network connections comprises, at a first data processing node that is hosting a transport protocol connection that uses a plurality of sequence values to identify messages sent to a peer node, wherein the first node is communicatively coupled to a second data processing node serving as a redundant backup, periodically sending a checkpoint sequence value to the second node; detecting that either the transport protocol connection or a process using the transport protocol connection is unavailable, without use of a timeout; and in response thereto, sending a notification to the peer node, wherein the notification includes the checkpoint sequence value. One embodiment provides for rapidly detecting and responding to failure of a TCP process without using long timeouts as conventionally provided in long-lived applications that run on top of TCP.

Detecting unavailable network connections

A checkpointing approach enables BGP peers to reduce the number of UPDATE messages that are exchanged and processed after a router restarts and to pause and suspend BGP sessions when mobile nodes leave a BGP domain. In an embodiment, a router is configured for receiving a BGP pause message from a mobile node; suspending interaction with the mobile node using BGP, including suspension of expiration of BGP sessions for lack of keepalive messages; receiving a BGP resume message from the mobile node, wherein the resume message comprises a checkpoint marker that identifies a last route update that the mobile node received before the suspending; resuming interaction with the mobile node using BGP; and determining and sending to the mobile node all BGP routes that originated after the checkpoint marker.

Suspending operation of border gateway protocol

Approaches are disclosed for switching transport protocol connection keys. A method of automatically changing a message authentication key at each of two endpoints of a connection in a telecommunications network comprises testing a date-time value received in each of a plurality of data segments on the connection; and selecting a next message authentication key, from among a plurality of stored message authentication keys, for use in authenticating subsequently received data segments, when the date-time value matches a specified characteristic.

Approaches for automatically switching message authentication keys

A system and method for performing stateful switchover with reduced data, such as only metadata about a TCP window state. The metadata comprises a size of TCP packets used to send BGP messages, and which of those have been acknowledged by a neighbor networking device. The networking device comprises a BGP module to establish a BGP session between the networking device and a neighbor networking device. An active transport module within the networking device synchronizes with a standby transport module within the networking device by sending the metadata. A fault detector within the networking device initiates a stateful switchover from the active transport module to the standby transport module responsive to detecting a failure of a process and/or processor. The standby transport module uses the metadata to determine stateful metadata for preserving current BGP and TCP sessions of the networking device.

Cooperative TCP / BGP window management for stateful switchover

A method and apparatus is disclosed for graceful restart in a multi-process operating system. A transport protocol process, which is capable of restarting independently from the operating system, is executed in a network element. The network element executes a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) process, which installs one or more routes in a global Routing Information Base (RIB). When the BGP process detects that the transport protocol process has become unavailable, the BGP process keeps the one or more routes in the global RIB even though the transport protocol process is not available.

Techniques for graceful restart in a multi-process operating system

Growing community of inventors

Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Chandrashekhar Appanna