Nortel Networks Corporation

Frank Horsfall

Lakshminath Dondeti

Michael C Lee

A method for preserving security associations between at least two entities includes the steps of maintaining a security association relating to communication between the at least two entities in a table, and periodically storing the security association in non-volatile storage. With such an arrangement, in the event that data within the table become corrupted, it can be retrieved from storage. Because the key data is stored, performance losses due to re-establishing the secure group are minimized. In one embodiment, the security association is advantageously encrypted prior to storage to further secure the security associations for each member.

Security association storage and recovery in group key management

A method and apparatus has been described that permits fast re-establishment of secure communications between endpoints in a network through intelligent re-use of existing security associations.

Growing community of inventors

Gloucester, Canada

Frank Horsfall