At&t Intellectual Property I, LP

At+t Corp.

David Kinsky

Stephen L Holmgren

John Babu Medamana

Mateusz Szela

Christopher J Chase

Jeewan P Ramsaroop

Mateusz W Szela

An Ethernet Metropolitan Area Network provides connectivity to one or more customer premises to packet-bases services, such as ATM, Frame Relay, or IP while advantageously providing a mechanism for assuring security and regulation of customer traffic. Upon receipt of each customer-generated information frame, an ingress Multi-Service Platform (MSP) 'tags' the frame with a customer descriptor that specifically identifies the recipient customer. In practice, the MSP tags each frame by overwriting the Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) identifier with the routing descriptor. Using the customer descriptor in each frame, a recipient Provider Edge Router (PER) or ATM switch can map the information as appropriate to direct the information to the specific customer. In addition, the customer descriptor may also include Quality of Service (QoS) allowing the recipient Provider Edge Router (PER) or ATM switch to vary the QoS level accordingly.

Technique for ethernet access to packet-based services

An Ethernet Metropolitan Area Network () provides connectivity to one or more customer premises () to packet-bases services, such as ATM, Frame Relay, or IP while advantageously providing a mechanism for assuring security and regulation of customer traffic. Upon receipt of each customer-generated information frame (), an ingress Multi-Service Platform (MSP) () 'tags' the frame with a customer descriptor () that specifically identifies the recipient customer. In practice, the MSP tags each frame by overwriting the Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) identifier () with the routing descriptor. Using the customer descriptor in each frame, a recipient Provider Edge Router (PER) () or ATM switch can map the information as appropriate to direct the information to the specific customer. In addition, the customer descriptor () may also include Quality of Service (QoS) allowing the recipient Provider Edge Router (PER) () or ATM switch to vary the QoS level accordingly.

Technique for Ethernet access to packet-based services

An Ethernet Metropolitan Area Network provides connectivity to one or more customer premises to packet-based services, such as ATM, Frame Relay, or IP, while advantageously providing a mechanism for assuring security and regulation of customer traffic. Upon receipt of each customer-generated information frame, an ingress Multi-Service Platform (MSP) 'tags' the frame with a customer descriptor that specifically identifies the recipient customer. In practice, the MSP tags each frame by overwriting the Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) identifier with the customer descriptor. Using the customer descriptor in each frame, a recipient Provider Edge Router (PER) or ATM switch can map the information as appropriate to direct the information to the specific customer at its receiving site. In addition, the customer descriptor may also include Quality of Service (QoS) information, allowing the recipient Provider Edge Router (PER) or ATM switch to afford the appropriate QoS level accordingly.

A network interworking facility () advantageously interworks Ethernet and ATM networks () having different protocols to permit the data from in one network to pass to the other and vice versa without the need for the source in to account for the protocol of the destination. Upon receipt of an information frame from the source, the interworking facility forms a second frame of a format compatible with the destination network and including the information payload from the first frame. The interworking facility also maps the destination address incorporated in the origin frame to a corresponding destination address of a format compatible with the destination network to facilitate forwarding of the second frame to the destination.

Ethernet-to-ATM interworking technique

The present invention provides a network architecture that interworks OA&M (Operations, Administration and Maintenance) failure notification data from the ATM Domain to the Ethernet Domain and vice versa. Failure indications or notifications are typically routed from one domain to another within 1-2 seconds; providing service providers and customers the ability to react quickly to network faults. This enhances the overall quality of the Ethernet-to-ATM Interworking service and provides a similar level of reliability across the Ethernet/ATM/FR domains.

Interworking OAM between Ethernet and ATM/frame relay networks

A network interworking facility () advantageously interworks Ethernet and ATM networks () having different protocols to permit the data from in one network to pass to the other and vice versa without the need for the source in to account for the protocol of the destination. Upon receipt of an information frame from the source, the Interworking facility forms a second frame of a format compatible with the destination network and including the information payload from the first frame. The interworking facility also maps the destination address incorporated in the origin frame to a corresponding destination address of a format compatible with the destination network to facilitate forwarding of the second frame to the destination.

Interworking of first and second networks () is accomplished by an interworking facility () that serves to map the destination address in first frames received from the first network into second destinations addresses compatible with the second network. To conserve such mapping the assignments, the first network encapsulates information frames () received from one or more sites associated with a first customer into jumbo frames () that have a generic address associated with that customer. At the interworking facility, the individual frames are stripped from the jumbo frame and routed to corresponding destinations in the second network.

Ethernet-to-ATM interworking that conserves VLAN assignments

An Ethernet Metropolitan Area Network () provides connectivity to one or more customer premises () to packet-bases services, such as ATM, Frame Relay, or IP while advantageously providing a mechanism for assuring security and regulation of customer traffic. Upon receipt of each customer-generated information frame (), an ingress Multi-Service Platform (MSP) () 'tags' the frame with a customer descriptor (') that specifically identifies the recipient customer. In practice, the MSP tags each frame by overwriting the Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) identifier () with the customer descriptor. Using the customer descriptor in each frame, a recipient Provider Edge Router (PER) () or ATM switch can map the information as appropriate to direct the information to the specific customer at its receiving site. In addition, the customer descriptor (&#x2032;) may also include Quality of Service (QoS) information, allowing the recipient Provider Edge Router (PER) () or ATM switch to afford the appropriate QoS level accordingly.

An Ethernet Metropolitan Area Network () provides connectivity to one or more customer premises () to packet-based services, such as ATM, Frame Relay, or IP, while advantageously providing a mechanism for assuring security and regulation of customer traffic. Upon receipt of each customer-generated information frame (), an ingress Multi-Service Platform (MSP) () 'tags' the frame with a customer descriptor (') that specifically identifies the recipient customer. In practice, the MSP tags each frame by overwriting the Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) identifier () with the customer descriptor. Using the customer descriptor in each frame, a recipient Provider Edge Router (PER) () or ATM switch can map the information as appropriate to direct the information to the specific customer at its receiving site. In addition, the customer descriptor (&#x2032;) may also include Quality of Service (QoS) information, allowing the recipient Provider Edge Router (PER) () or ATM switch to afford the appropriate QoS level accordingly. Each Ethernet switch may advantageously overwrite the VLAN identifier at an incoming port with a second tag associated with an egress port to increase the scale associated with single switch.

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High Bridge, NJ, United States of America

David Kinsky