Cisco Technology, Inc.

Platina Systems Corporation

Cisco Systems Inc.

Dquora Labs, Inc.

Dino Farinacci

John M Zwiebel

Ijsbrand Wijnands

Stefano Benedetto Previdi

Hasmit S Grover

Victor Manuel Moreno

Gregory J Shepherd

Ronak K Desai

Dhananjaya Rao

Tony Speakman

Nair Venugopal

Fabio Rodolfo Maino

Arjen Boers

Raghava Kodigenahalli Sivaramu

Liming Wei

Mike Shand

Joel P Bion

Alex Tweedly

Thomas James Edsall

Ali Sajassi

Yakov Rekhter

Sanjay Sane

Ayan Banerjee

Abhay Kumar Roy

Umesh Mahajan

Ramana Mellacheruvu

Nataraj Bacthu

Daniel A Alvarez

Jesper Skriver

Tameen Khan

Darrel Jay Lewis

Christian Cassar

Amitkumar V Patel

John Mullooly

Isidoros Kouvelas

Jason Luo Pang

Mark Tehmin Yin

Frank Szu-Jen Yang

Gregg Schudel

Steven P Lin

Eliot Michael Dresselhaus

Alex G Tweedly

Andreas Demetrios Bovopoulos

Clarence Filsfils

David R Oran

Toerless Eckert

Patrice Bellagamba

Douglas Alan Gourlay

Ashok N Chippa

Gaurav Badoni

Apoorva Karan

Jeff Byzek

Steven B Phillips

Omar Sultan

Robert Albrightson

Walter H Blomquist

Ashish Krishna

A method is described. The method includes building a description of a workflow. The method also includes creating an embedded workflow description by embedding the description of the workflow with logical identifiers of different instances of services that are available over a network. The method also includes repeatedly performing a) and b) below to execute the embedded workflow: a) dispatching the embedded workflow to a control worker node within a pool of free control worker nodes, the control worker node referring to the embedded workflow description and issuing a job request that defines one or more next operations of the workflow upon the control worker node recognizing that execution of the next one or more operations is appropriate in view of the workflow's state, the next one or more operations including a function call to a service identified by one of the logical identifiers; b) dispatching the job request to an execution worker node within a pool of free execution worker nodes, the execution worker node executing the next one or more operations including mapping the logical identifier of the service to a physical location of the service, incorporating the physical location and the function call into a packet and sending the packet over the network.

Workflow runtime environment with distributed control and networked service invocations having separate logical and physical endpoint identifiers

In one embodiment, a system includes a number of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). The system also includes one or more processors coupled to the ASICs including instructions executable by the processors. The processors being operable when executing the instructions to configure the plurality of ASICs to route data packets using a standard protocol; configure the ASICs to set up a tunnel, using the standard protocol, for moving data packets from one ASIC to another of the number of ASICs; and implement a software overlay to facilitate interaction between the number of ASICs through the tunnel for moving the data packets.

Heterogeneous network in a modular chassis

In one embodiment, a solution is provided wherein redundant routers are treated as a single emulated switch. When a packet is received at a layer 2 edge switch from a host, the layer 2 edge switch may determine a switch identifier for the emulated switch using a destination anycast hardware address contained in the packet. The anycast hardware address may identify an emulated switch comprising a plurality of routers. Then a header may be added to the packet, the header including the switch identifier. Following that, the packet may be forwarded to another layer 2 switch along a shortest path from the layer 2 edge switch to the emulated switch.

Triple-tier anycast addressing

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving at a first network device in a first virtual private network, a packet destined for a second network device in communication with a second virtual private network, and transmitting the packet over the second network, wherein the packet is encapsulated for transmittal on a tunnel extending from the first network device to the second network device. The first network device is in communication with a system operable to map and encapsulate the packet and provide an overlay that traverses over the second virtual private network. An apparatus and logic are also disclosed herein.

Interconnecting virtual private networks

Methods and systems may be provided for installing a route entry associated with multicast traffic to a memory. Client devices may be notified of the route entry for advertisement by an active source device. The delivery group and delivery source may be retrieved from the information for the route entry. Multicast data trees may maintain delivery group and delivery source information for access.

Multicast active source discovery and management for layer-2 interconnect solutions

Devices, methods and instructions encoded on computer readable medium are provided herein for creation of an overlay network on a non-multicast or source specific multicast (SSM) core. In one example, virtual private network (VPN) adjacencies are established between an adjacency server and one or more edge devices each located at different network sites. A unicast replication list is then generated at the adjacency server. The unicast replication list includes the Internet Protocol addresses for each of the edge devices having VPN adjacencies with the adjacency server. The unicast replication list is then advertised to each of the edge devices for use in establishing VPN adjacencies with one another.

Adjacency server for virtual private networks

Systems and methods for implementing a bidirectional multicast protocol with two types of join messages are disclosed. The two types of join messages, upstream joins and downstream joins, are used to control the Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) interface is added to the outgoing interface list for a particular multicast group, which in turn controls when multicast packets will be forwarded to the rendezvous point. One method involves receiving a multicast packet addressed to multicast group G. The method inhibits the multicast packet from being forwarded via the RPF interface, unless the outgoing interface list corresponding to the multicast group G already identifies the RPF interface. The RPF interface can be added to the outgoing interface list in response to reception of a downstream join message via the RPF interface, as well as in response to monitoring, via the RPF interface, an upstream join message on a shared network segment.

Bidirectional multicast protocol with upstream and downstream join messages

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a packet from a first host at a first edge device, the packet comprising a layer 3 address of a second host in communication with a second edge device, using the layer 3 address of the second host to receive a layer 2 address and a location identifier for the second host from a database accessible from a core network, the database comprising a mapping of layer 3 host addresses to layer 2 host addresses and location identifiers, and storing a mapping of the layer 2 address to the location identifier at the first edge device for use in forwarding packets to the second host. The first edge device is in communication with the second edge device in an overlay network defined by the edge devices interconnected by the core network. An apparatus and logic are also disclosed herein.

Overlay services in communication networks

In one embodiment, an indication of a fault condition is received relating to a first service running on a physical device in a computer network. The first service is associated with a first virtual device context defined on the physical device. Then, the first service is disabled without affecting operation of a second service on the physical device. The second service is associated with a second virtual device context defined on the physical device. In another embodiment, a first virtual device context is created on a physical device in a computer network. Then, a second virtual device context is created on the physical device. The first virtual device context may then be managed independently of the second virtual device context such that resources assigned to a virtual device context are managed without affecting management of another virtual device context.

Logical partitioning of a physical device

Various techniques for exchanging control messages in order to gracefully reroute multicast traffic are disclosed. For example, one method involves sending a join message for a multicast group towards a root of a new multicast tree and forwarding multicast traffic, addressed to the multicast group, on a current multicast tree until an acknowledgment corresponding to the join message is received. The new multicast tree can be identified in response to detection of a topology change within the network. Until the acknowledgment is received, multicast traffic that is received via the new multicast tree can be dropped.

Acknowledgement-based rerouting of multicast traffic

Methods and apparatus for source rooted multicast (SRM) are provided. As defined herein, SRM generally refers to associating outgoing interface lists (OILs) in the forwarding entry with the source address instead of the group address and aggregating the resulting multicast forwarding states. In this manner, the amount of forwarding state may be reduced, especially in deployments where many hosts are all running the same application and using the same group. One example method generally includes&#x2014;for each of a plurality of multicast forwarding states associated with a multicast group, wherein each multicast forwarding state is referenced by a source address representing a multicast source and is associated with an outgoing interface list&#x2014;associating the outgoing interface list with the source address; and aggregating the two or more of the multicast forwarding states having the outgoing interface lists associated with the source addresses to form one or more aggregated forwarding states.

Source rooted multicast (SRM)

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving information on layer 2 topologies at a network device in a core network, mapping one or more Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) to the layer 2 topologies to provide differentiated services in said layer 2 topologies, defining multiple paths for each of the layer 2 topologies, and forwarding a packet received at the network device on one of the multiple paths. An apparatus and logic for providing differentiated services in layer 2 topologies is also disclosed.

Differentiated services for unicast and multicast frames in layer 2 topologies

In one embodiment, an apparatus includes one or more internal interfaces in communication with one or more network devices in a first network site through a Layer 2 link, an overlay interface in communication through a Layer 3 link with a core network connected to one or more other network sites, and a table mapping addresses for network devices in the other network sites to addresses of edge devices in the same network site as the network device. The apparatus further includes a processor operable to encapsulate a packet received at one of the internal interfaces and destined for one of the network devices in the other network sites, with an IP header including a destination address of the edge device mapped to the destination network device, and forward the encapsulated packet to the core network.

Overlay transport virtualization

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Dino Farinacci