Cisco Technology, Inc.

Tellabs San Jose, Inc.

Mahidas Prabhanjan

Vipin Jain

Ashutosh Agrawal

Parag Bhide

Sukhesh Halemane

Lisa Hong Nguyen

Samer Isam Nubani

David Tseng

Techniques are presented herein for distributing address information of host devices in a network. At a first router device, a packet is received from a first host device that is destined for a second host device. The first host device is dually-connected to the first router and a second router device. The second router device is part of a virtual port channel pair with the first router device. A message is sent to the second router device, the message indicating that the first host device is connected to the second router device. The packet is encapsulated with an overlay header and is sent to a third router device that is connected to the second host device. The encapsulated packet contains a Layer 2 address associated with the first host device and a Layer 3 address associated with the first host device.

Using a virtual internet protocol address to represent dually connected hosts in an internet protocol overlay network

Techniques are presented herein for distributing address information of host devices in a network. At a first router device, a packet is received from a first host device that is destined for a second host device. The first host device is dually-connected to the first router and a second router device. The second router device is part of a virtual port channel pair with the first router device. A message is sent to the second router device, the message indicating that the first host device is connected to the second router device. The packet is encapsulated with an overlay header and is sent to a third router device that is connected to the second host device. The encapsulated packet contains a Layeraddress associated with the first host device and a Layeraddress associated with the first host device.

An addressing redirection mechanism is initiated at a first networking device in a computing network in order to enable the first networking device to perform one or more distributed proxy addressing operations on behalf of a connected second networking device. An address request transmitted from a first host device to a second host device to obtain addressing information of the second host device is received at the first networking device, and the first networking device inspects the address request to identify addressing information for the first host device. The first networking device is configured to forward the addressing information for the first host device to the second networking device.

Distributed proxy addressing operations

An addressing redirection mechanism is initiated at a switch or a router in a computing network in order to enable the switch to perform one or more distributed proxy addressing operations on behalf of a connected router. An address request transmitted from a first host device to a second host device to obtain addressing information of the second host device is received at the switch, and the switch inspects the address request to identify addressing information for the first host device. The switch is configured to forward the addressing information for the first host device to the router.

A method or apparatus in an exemplary embodiment supports first and second layer network nodes that may be configured to communicate with each other via a communications path. In embodiments a first network node communicates via a second network node across a layer 2 network to send data. The first network node is typically on a different link layer protocol than the second network node receiving the data. Thus, the first and second layer network nodes, having different link layer protocols, may communicate with each other. Accordingly, through use of embodiments of this invention, Neighbor Discovery (ND) is possible in a network, such as an IPv6 network, that has protocols incompatible with each other.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Mahidas Prabhanjan