Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.p.

Hewlett-Packard Company

Newtrax Holdings Inc.

Martin Bouchard

Anil Gupta

Pierre Trudeau

Yannick Koehler

Richard H Blanchette

Gilbert Moineau

Roger D Sands

Fréderic D Mouveaux

Alexandre Cervinka

Frederic D Mouveaux

A method for acknowledging presence in a context-aware environment includes the steps of detecting, with at least one context awareness mechanism, if a context-aware device is within a predetermined range or distance. The method further includes, that when the vehicle device or personal device is within a range of the moving vehicle, sending a request of acknowledgment to the vehicle device or personal device. In events where the moving vehicle device does not receive an acknowledgment from another vehicle or a worker within a predetermined duration, the moving vehicle is automatically stopped. In events where the moving vehicle device receives an acknowledgment from all the devices within the predetermined range, the device of the moving vehicle considers the context as non-hazardous and the vehicle may continue along its path.

Method and system for acknowledging presence in a context-aware environment

To enable a network apparatus to detect L3 roaming users and to take appropriate forwarding actions, L3 knowledge is introduced inside an L2 bridge forwarding table in the network apparatus. As a client moves from a subnet associated with a first network element to a subnet associated with the network apparatus, a determination is made regarding whether the client is roaming by evaluating a source IP address within a L3 packet header within a first frame received at the network apparatus. If, as a result of the evaluating step, it is determined that the client is roaming, the L2 bridge forwarding table is configured to include a source MAC address of the client together with information identifying a destination interface for use in directing client data traffic back towards the subnet associated with the first network element.

Network apparatus enabling roaming across subnets

To enable devices to detect L3 roaming users and to take appropriate forwarding actions, L3 knowledge is introduced inside a bridge in a non-intrusive way. In particular, as a client moves from a subnet associated with a first network element to a subnet associated with a second network element, a determination is made regarding whether the client is roaming. This is done by evaluating a source IP address within a L3 packet header within a first frame received at the second network element. If, as a result of the evaluating step, it is determined that the client is roaming, an L2 bridge forwarding table in the second network element is configured to include a source MAC address of the client together with information identifying at least a destination interface for use in directing client data traffic back towards the subnet associated with the first network element. The first frame is then forwarded. In one embodiment, the traffic is directed back towards the subnet associated with the first network element via a GRE encapsulation tunnel, although any convenient tunneling mechanism can be used. According to another feature, given information cached at the foreign access point is used to enable the roaming client to continue to seamlessly receive inbound traffic prior to or during the configuration of the L2 bridge forwarding table (i.e., before any outbound traffic is actually sent from the client).

Seamless roaming across wireless subnets using source address forwarding

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Montréal, Canada

Martin Bouchard