Cisco Technology, Inc.

Cisco Tchnology, Ink.

Marco Foschiano

Christophe Paggen

Maurizio Portolani

Shyamasundar S Kaluve

Alagu Annaamalai

Andrei Kouzmitch

Oleg Tabarovsky

Justin Qizhong Chen

Thomas James Edsall

Kalyan Ghosh

Michael Fine

Munish Mehta

Chickayya Naik

Thomas John Nosella

Vijayan Ramakrishnan

Hei Tao Fung

Suresh Gurajapu

Ambarish Chintamani Kenghe

Venkateshwar Rao Pullela

Douglas Alan Gourlay

Bhushan Mangesh Kanekar

Jie Cheng Jiang

Vardarajan Venkatesh

Ali Ahmad Tareen

Omar G Abuabara

Nirmalendu Das

Jean-Francois Vincent

Munawar Hossain

Alessandro Barbieri

Robert Benea

Prabhu Seshachellam

Sudheer Babu Chittireddy

John Hastwell

Vinayak M Kamat

Ravichandra Ryali

Sacidhar C Nambakkam

Sushilkumar K Goyal

In one embodiment, a local network device collects local optical power information for at least one of either a local optical transmit interface and a local optical receive interface of the local network device. The local network device may then exchange the local information for remote optical power information of corresponding remote optical receive and transmit interfaces of a remote network device at an opposing end of at least one corresponding optical link (fiber). For example, an exchange may use a point-to-point protocol which may dynamically determine/discover neighboring relationships between capable peer device interfaces and establish a suitable communication exchange between the capable peers. Based on the local information and exchanged remote information, the local network device may calculate an optical power loss of each corresponding optical link.

Optical link quality monitoring in a computer network

Stackable Layer 2 switches may be upgraded through a stateless upgrade procedure that minimizes software upgrade complexity while leveraging the intrinsic redundancy of the network to minimize traffic disruption. Disclosed methods may be targeted to platforms that lack support for other non-disruptive upgrade technologies, but that can leverage the intrinsic network redundancy to minimize traffic impact during a stack upgrade.

Method and systems to perform a rolling stack upgrade

An apparatus and method for event-based data capture from network flows are provided. At a network device, a network flow is received that comprises a plurality of packets each comprising control information and data. The network flow is monitored for the occurrence of at least one predetermined triggering event. In response to detecting the triggering event, at least a portion of one or more of the packets received after the triggering event is captured, and the captured portion is exported to an analysis server. The network device may comprise any device configured to forward flows of packets such as, for example, switches, routers, firewalls, etc.

Event-based capture of packets from a network flow

In one embodiment, an apparatus comprises a first logic configured to determine an identifier associated with a packet and determine a flow count index associated with the identifier, and a flow counter, coupled to the first logic and configured to count a number of packet flows associated with the flow count index. The embodiment also includes a second logic, coupled to the first logic and the flow counter, wherein the second logic is configured analyze the packet to determine if the packet is a part of a new packet flow that has not been counting in the flow counter, and if it has not been counted, incrementing the flow counter.

Processing packet flows

A Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) protocol query and/or report snooping process is modified to appropriately map secondary PVLAN identifiers to corresponding primary PVLAN identifiers, thereby accommodating other system elements that are otherwise unaware of primary/secondary PVLAN distinctions. Special cases are also accommodated where reverse path forwarding (RPF) checks in support of multicast operation might otherwise fail due to primary/secondary PVLAN distinctions. Additional steps are taken to ensure that PVLAN information properly accounts for changes in configuration and/or location of various network hosts.

Systems and methods for multicast switching in a private VLAN

Techniques are provided for receiving one or more packets at a network device in a network. The one or more packets are part of normal network communication traffic. Device specific information associated with the one or more packets is generated that is unique to or available at the network device. One or more duplicate packets corresponding to the one or more packets are generated. The device specific information is encapsulated within the one or more duplicate packets for transmission over the network. The one or more duplicate packets are received at a network analyzer in the network. The device specific information associated with the one or more packets that is unique to the network device is extracted from the one or more duplicate packets and analyzed to determine network metrics for the one or more packets.

Remote traffic monitoring through a network

Methods and apparatus for intelligent sharing and tighter integration between a service engine (SE) for network communication and a high-speed forwarding device, such that certain network flows may be offloaded from the SE to benefit from the high-speed forwarding capacity of such a device are provided. To accomplish the integration, an application binary interface (ABI) may be employed as an in-band high-priority communication protocol between the data planes of the SE and the high-speed forwarding device, and an application programming interface (API) may be utilized to leverage the ABI and any in-band or out-of-band channel to allow the master SE to control the high-speed slave device. Such integration techniques are not limited to a few specialized hardware components, but may also be applied to other types of hardware resources, such as flow tables, quality of service (QoS) tables, access control list (ACL) tables for security, forwarding and adjacency tables, etc.

Multi-layer hardware-based service acceleration (MHSA)

Automatic filter generation and maintenance comprises detecting, from network packets, an IP address and a first MAC address; the IP address and the first MAC address are used to determine that the IP address and another MAC address that are detected in second network packets is an illegal binding and the other MAC address is different from the first MAC address; causing a network element to create, in an ARP filter, based on the IP address and the first MAC address, rules that cause the network element to prevent an address resolution protocol table from including a binding that includes only one of the IP address and the first MAC address; in response to detecting the IP address and said another MAC address in the second network packets, preventing the address resolution protocol table from including the illegal binding that includes the IP address and the other MAC address.

Method and apparatus for automatic filter generation and maintenance

A method and network device to generate a remote traffic monitoring session using an automated technique to configure the source and destination devices of the monitoring system is disclosed. The method includes discovering a Layer 3 (L3) source device and an L3 destination device and automatically configuring the devices. The L3 source device passes target traffic that will be monitored via the L3 destination device in a remote traffic monitoring session. The method verifies configurations of the L3 source device and the L3 destination device, and determines remote monitoring capabilities common to the L3 source device and the L3 destination device. The method negotiates relevant parameters for the remote traffic monitoring session and establishes the remote traffic monitoring session between the L3 source device and the L3 destination device.

ERSPAN dynamic session negotiation

Disclosed are mechanisms for facilitating the use of DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol) binding data. In general, certain applications include mechanisms for intercepting data being sent from a node and then determining whether the data corresponds to a valid IP address and MAC address binding. Embodiments of the present invention provide mechanisms for sharing such DHCP binding data between routers (or other type of network devices) in a redundancy group so that any of the routers may take over the data inspection to validate DHCP bindings. In particular aspects of the invention, the DHCP binding data is validated in procedures related to DHCP snooping, dynamic ARP (address resolution protocol) inspection, and the like.

Extending sso for DHCP snooping to two box redundancy

A method is disclosed for automatic filter generation and maintenance. From information transmitted on a network, a first device identifier and a second device identifier are detected. Based on the first and second device identifiers, a filter is automatically configured to deny network-transmitted information that attempts to establish an association between the first device identifier and a device identifier other than the second device identifier.

A method for inspecting packets is disclosed. The method includes processing a packet by determining if the packet is an inter-layer binding protocol packet and inspecting the packet, if the packet is an inter-layer binding protocol packet. The inter-layer binding protocol packet indicating a binding between a first network layer address and a second network layer address.

Method and apparatus for inter-layer binding inspection

A method of operating a network is disclosed. The method includes identifying a packet as being subject to a policy and forwarding said packet based on said policy, if said packet is subject to said policy.

Method and system for policy-based forwarding

A method for cable diagnostics in a network includes performing a test to determine initial state information for each of a plurality of lines coupled to a switch and storing the initial state information in a database. When a change in the state of a line is detected, the test is re-run to determine new state information of the line. The new state information is stored in the database and a message that identifies the change in state and a likely cause of the state change is issued to a network operator. It is emphasized that this abstract is provided to comply with the rules requiring an abstract that will allow a searcher or other reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Marco Foschiano