Cisco Technology, Inc.

Kenneth Earl Mueller, Ii

James Anthony Aviani, Jr

Mehryar Khalili Garakani

Frederick Juergens Baker

Matthew Richard Gnagy

David Eric Swanson

Jean-Philippe Champagne

Dan Li

Clare Chu

Zheng Yang

Mark Ting

Stephen Jeffrey Morris

Bruce Arthur Lueckenhoff

Joshua Miles Chase

Arun Raghavendra Desai

Dmitry Stavisky

Shanchi Zhan

The invention is directed to methods and techniques in a communications device for delivering content. In particular the technique includes intercepting, from a requesting device, an initial request for initial content accessible from an initial content source and in response to intercepting the initial request, creating redirection information indicating an identity of secondary content to be accessed by the requesting device in addition to the initial content in the initial request and providing the redirection information to the requesting device, such that the requesting device accesses both the secondary content from the secondary content source as well as the initial content from the initial content source.

Methods and apparatus for providing content over a computer network

Mechanisms and techniques provide a system that operates in a data communications device such as a switch or a router to provide a technique for inserting data into packets associated with a communications session between a first and second computerized devices. The technique comprises receiving a first packet containing data being propagated from the first computerized device to the second computerized device in the communications session and inserting a first amount of extra data into the first packet to alter the size of the first packet and forwarding the first packet including the first amount of extra data to the second computerized device. By monitoring and adjusting sequence and acknowledgement information from with in the data communications device, data can be inserted into packets without disrupting connection state information maintained by and expected by each computerized device.

Methods and apparatus for inserting data into a communications session

A method and apparatus that provide for determining a multilayer switching path are disclosed. In one embodiment of the invention, a Layer 3 path and a Layer 2 path between a source device and destination device are first determined in order to identify the relevant switch engines that perform the multilayer switching. Determining whether the switch engines satisfy a set of criteria identifies the relevant switch engines.

Method and apparatus for determining a multilayer switching path

The technique of the present invention provides a solution to the problem of routing or redirecting a given client to a replica or proxy server which has a relatively shortest propagation delay to the client. According to the technique of the present invention, a network device referred to as an intercept server sits in front of a host server, and intercepts packets routed to the host server. When desired, packets which are intercepted by the intercept server are replicated, encapsulated and tunneled to selected client servers in the overlay network. The tunneled packets are received and processed by each of the selected client servers, whereupon each of the selected client servers generates a respective spoofed response to the source device identified in the header of the originally intercepted packet. Further, according to the technique of the present invention, each of the selected client servers transmits its respective spoofed response to the identified source device at substantially the same time. The client server associated with the spoofed response which is first received at the identified source device is considered to have the relatively shortest propagation delay to the identified source device, and is identified as the successful client server. Thereafter, the source device will be directed or redirected to communicate directly with the successful client server when subsequently attempting to access information from the host server.

Distributed network traffic load balancing technique implemented without gateway router

A system for reliable multicast distribution includes a primary content engine and a backup content engine sender. The primary content engine sender sends out a multicast message of content to selected content engine receivers. The sender waits for negative acknowledgments from the selected content engine receivers declaring that content was not received. If a negative acknowledgment is received, the sender resends the multicast message a predetermined number of times. If the content is still not received after the number of multicast passes is exhausted, the sender sends out unicast messages to those receivers still requesting content. If the primary sender does not respond to a negative acknowledgment, the receiver sends a second negative acknowledgment to the backup multicast sender. The backup responds with the data requested in the negative acknowledgment and so is able to begin data distribution at the point where the primary sender left off without maintaining synchronicity with the primary sender.

Method and apparatus for reliable multicast distribution

An apparatus and method for defining content distribution paths in a content distribution network integrate unicast and multicast connections. Content engines in the content distributed network are organized into channels with a master content engine maintaining specific content. The content distribution network is further organized into a distribution hierarchy based on network topology and channel definitions, first by establishing unicast paths through the content distributed network and then by integrating multicast paths into the unicast hierarchy. The further organization of the content distribution network establishes distribution trees from the channel masters to the network edges.

Method and apparatus for multicast cloud with integrated multicast and unicast channel routing in a content distribution network

A method and apparatus that provides for determining a packet transmission path for a managed network using Internet Protocol is disclosed. A network management station can use a source-routed IP path tracing operation to determine a packet transmission path for a managed network even when an end-station from which the packet emanates (source node) in the managed network does not support source-routed IP path tracing operation by determining a first gateway used by the source node to reach the packet's destination (destination node). Further, a second gateway is determined based on the first gateway and destination node. The second gateway is used as the first hop from the source node to the destination node when the subnet associated with the source node is identical to the subnet associated with the second gateway.

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Santa Barbara, CA, United States of America

Kenneth Earl Mueller, Ii