Juniper Networks, Inc.

Der-Hwa Gan

Anthony Joseph Li

Nischal Sheth

Ping Pan

Dennis C Ferguson

Manoj Leelanivas

Keith Eric Holleman

Arun Vaidyanathan

Pedro R Marques

Ina Minei

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 connection between network nodes in a communication network is backed up. A failover switched path such as a label-switched path (LSP) is created starting at a first network node of a connection and ending at the second node of the connection, while bypassing the protected connection. In the event of connection failure, data is transmitted through the failover switched path (e.g., LSP). A network operator can selectively protect different types of data by using filters that bind one or more types of traffic received over one or more interfaces to different failover switched paths (LSPs).

Protecting connection traffic using filters

To address shortcomings in the prior art, the invention uses fate sharing information to compute backup paths. Fate sharing information relates groups of nodes or links according to common characteristics, attributes, or shared resources (e.g., a shared power supply, close proximity, same physical link). In one embodiment, fate-sharing information includes costs associated with groups of nodes or links. When a primary path contains a link or node that is in a fate-sharing group, the other links or nodes in the fate-sharing group are assigned the cost associated with that fate-sharing group. The node computing the backup path takes into account the assigned cost together with other node and link costs. Discovering the existence of the relationships and assigning costs to the groups may be done manually or automatically.

Method and apparatus for computing a backup path using fate-sharing information

Constraint information associated with peering links is taken into account when establishing label switched paths (LSPs) to exit points of a network. Devices within the network, such as routers, designate interfaces associated with peering links as 'passive interfaces' to indicate that the interfaces should be included for bandwidth accounting purposes and internal path computation. Other devices within the network utilize the constraint information, e.g., bandwidth availability, when computing and establishing LSPs to the exit points of the network to avoid congested peering links.

RSVP-passive interfaces for traffic engineering peering links in MPLS networks

Method and apparatus for computing a backup path using fate sharing information

A connection between network nodes in a communication network is backed up. A failover label-switched path (LSP) is created starting at a first network node of a connection and endingat the second node of the connection, while bypassing the protected connection. In the event of connection failure, data is transmitted through the failover LSP. A network operator can selectively protect different types of data by using filters that bind one or more types of traffic received over one or more interfaces to different failover LSPs.

A network device for processing data packets includes input logic, a register, route lookup logic and output processing logic. The input logic receives a data packet having at least one multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) tag, stores the packet and forwards a portion of the packet including the MPLS tag. The route lookup logic receives the portion of the packet, generates next hop information based on the MPLS tag and determines whether at least one MPLS tag is to be removed from the packet before the packet is to be output by the network device. The route lookup logic also modifies a start offset value in the register for each MPLS tag that is to be removed and forwards the start offset. The output processing logic receives the start offset and begins processing the data packet for output at a location identified by the start offset.

Multi-protocol label switching in a network device

Outages in a label-switched path (LSP) are detected quickly using adjacency information, such as IGP 'hello neighbor' queries. Protocols, such as IGP can be instructed to check certain adjacencies more frequently. For example, a node in an LSP can determine a next downstream node in the LSP as an adjacency, check that adjacency much more frequently, and in the event that the adjacency is lost (due to a down link, a down interface, or a down node), switch any LSPs that have the adjacency to a failover path or route. Since these checks need not be performed using hardware signaling, outages of shared media interfaces, such as Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet, can be checked.

Detecting a label-switched path outage using adjacency information

A connection between network nodes in a communication network is backed up. A failover label-switched path (LSP) is created starting at a first network node of a connection and ending at the second node of the connection, while bypassing the protected connection. In the event of connection failure, data is transmitted through the failover LSP. A network operator can selectively protect different types of data by using filters that bind one or more types of traffic received over one or more interfaces to different failover LSPs.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Der-Hwa Gan