Ciena Corporation

Nortel Networks Corporation

Northern Telecom Limited

Michael Alain Gazier

Ian Hamish Duncan

Morteza Ghodrat

Lyndon Y Ong

Michael Y Frankel

William Anthony Gage

Daniel Rivaud

Dhananjay Damodar Godse

Joseph E Berthold

Denis Fluet

Stephen Kieran Adolph

James Andrew Frodsham

Loudon Thomas Blair

Kevin Estabrooks

Alan S Chapman

Raghuraman Ranganathan

Michael Dziawa

Mark Feeley

Steven James Rhodes

Sashisekaran Thiagarajan

Ken Neudorf

Reza Etemadi

Mike Magnusson

A method and apparatus facilitates an enterprise to lease virtual appliances from network services provider. The method operates by deploying a converged networking and computing device at a service location, downloading a virtual network function to the converged networking and computing device, activating the virtual network function by a service in the wide area network, and connecting the virtual network function to a provisioned network path over the wide area network. Different virtual network functions can be deployed to different locations. The same virtual network function scan be deployed to different locations. Moreover, more than one virtual network function may be deployed to more than one service location. The virtual network functions can be realized through virtual machines, software containers, etc.

Method and apparatus for provisioning virtual network functions from a network service provider

A method may include obtaining sensor data from sensors of a primary device, determining a sensor pattern based on the sensor data, generating a response based on the sensor pattern, and sending a signal over a network to a secondary device to trigger an action of the secondary device. The signal may be based on the sensor pattern.

Haptic strength responsive to motion detection

An optical switch fabric includes horizontal optical waveguides including a first set and a second set, the first set is configured to receive a first plurality of wavelengths from the one or more external switches and the second set is configured to send a second plurality of wavelengths to the one or more external switches; wavelength-selective drop optical switches associated with the first set, wherein the wavelength-selective drop optical switches are each configured to drop a selected wavelength from a horizontal optical waveguide of the first set to an associated vertical optical waveguide of vertical optical waveguides; and controllable optical switches associated with the vertical optical waveguides, wherein the controllable optical switches are each configured to direct a selected wavelength from a vertical optical waveguide to a horizontal optical waveguide of the second set.

Optical switch fabric for data center interconnections

A method and apparatus facilitates an enterprise to lease virtual appliances from network services provider. The method operates by deploying a converged networking and computing device at a service location, downloading a virtual machine to the converged networking and computing device, activating the virtual machine by a service in the wide area network, and connecting the virtual machine to a provisioned network path over the wide area network. Different virtual machines can be deployed to different locations. The same virtual machine can be deployed to different locations. Moreover, more than one virtual machine may be deployed to more than one service location.

Method and apparatus for provisioning a virtual machine (VM) from a network service provider

An optical switch fabric, including: a first set of horizontal optical waveguides receiving a plurality of wavelengths; a plurality of wavelength-selective drop optical switches associated with the first set of horizontal optical waveguides, wherein the plurality of wavelength-selective drop optical switches are each configured to drop a selected wavelength from a horizontal optical waveguide of the first set of horizontal optical waveguides to an associated vertical optical waveguide of a plurality of vertical optical waveguides; and a plurality of controllable optical switches associated with the plurality of vertical optical waveguides, wherein the plurality of controllable optical switches are each configured to direct a selected wavelength from a vertical optical waveguide of the plurality of vertical optical waveguides to a horizontal optical waveguide of a second set of horizontal optical waveguides, and wherein the second set of horizontal optical waveguides output a plurality of wavelengths.

Electro-optical switching fabric systems and methods

The present invention utilizes specific referential tables for forwarding decisions while maintaining current mechanisms of Ethernet addressing and QoS marking. The referential tables are utilized for forwarding decisions based on any and/or multiple fields within the packets simultaneously, such as, for example, incoming port number, incoming MAC, incoming VLAN, outgoing MAC, outgoing VLAN, P-bits, DSCP, MPLS label, TCP/UDP port numbers, IP, SIP, HTTP, and the like. A user can define the forwarding criteria based on any combination/permutation fields in the packet. Advantageously, the present invention removes the need to introduce explicit tunnel labels in the Ethernet frame in order to maintain the desired QoS within the network removing explicit labeling requirements.

Systems and methods for carrier ethernet using referential tables for forwarding decisions

The present invention provides methods and systems to remove the dependence on the IP layer (OSI layer three) in Video-on-Demand (VoD) transport networks. The present invention replaces the IP layer with Ethernet layer two addressing and even layer one, allowing connectivity in access/aggregation networks without IP layer three capabilities. The present invention enables STBs to communicate with VoD controllers, servers, and the like at layer two and/or layer one, eliminating the need for layer three routing capabilities in access/aggregation networks.

Methods and systems for interactive video transport over Ethernet networks

The present invention utilizes control plane signaling to dynamically configure flexible, existential ports. The ports are referred to as existential as their nature can change over time depending on the present need of the network, and because the ports are flexible and reconfigurable to a plurality of bit rates and protocols. The present invention removes the constraints of provisioning individual ports and connections, such as from a network management system, and integrates the concept of flexible ports with signaling and control plane methods utilized for routing in modern networks. Advantageously, the present invention extends service providers' investments in equipment, and reduces operating expenses in providing systems that are able to dynamically deal with various network configurations and with low touch by automatically performing provisioning. The methods and systems of the present invention can be extended to other networks utilizing flexible ports, such as wireless radios and the like.

Methods and systems for existential provisioning of flexible line modules using distributed control

The present invention provides systems and methods for video processing, such as transcoding, storage, quality testing, and the like, in network edge devices. The present invention embeds various video processing capabilities within a network to provide advantages, such as superior per-user video handling, reduced network bandwidth, increased service offerings, and the like.

Systems and methods for video processing in network edge devices

Network elements in IMS or other SIP systems are configured to pre-authenticate SIP requests either as proxy or by snooping. One or more of these network elements are pre-loaded with a local database copy of the user profiles as typically contained in the HSS inside of the IMS control structures. A master database, such as the one typically contained in the HSS, is distributed to all network elements using database distribution methods. Advantageously, pre-authentication solves bottleneck issues in the SIP mechanism by allowing an end user device to use fully authenticated SIP requests. This prevents the requirement to perform authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) all the way back to the core IMS network, alleviating lag and scaling issues. Additionally, network elements including can become aware of the services requested through SIP requests, and track these requests for optimization. Specifically, resources requested based upon SIP requests can be cached.

Methods and systems for distributed authentication and caching for internet protocol multimedia subsystem and other session initiation protocol systems

The present disclosure relates a network, a network element, a system, and a method providing an efficient allocation of protection capacity for network connections and/or services. These may be for services within a given Virtual Private Network (VPN) or Virtual Machine (VM) instance flow. Network ingress/egress ports are designed to be VM instance aware while transit ports may or may not be depending on network element capability or configuration. A centralized policy management and a distributed control plane are used to discover and allocate resources to and among the VPNs or VM instances. Algorithms for efficient allocation and release of protection capacity may be coordinated between the centralized policy management and the distributed control plane. Additional coupling of attributes such as latency may provide more sophisticated path selection algorithms including efficient sharing of protection capacity.

Virtualized shared protection capacity

A network method utilizing Session Initiation Protocol to establish a network path between network elements in a network includes generating a request for a network service in Session Initiation Protocol, wherein the request is one of manually and automatically configured, and wherein the request is directed to the network; obtaining network resources responsive to the request, wherein the network resources comprise network parameters required to obtain and provision the network path; and configuring the network resources responsive to the request. The network includes a plurality of network elements operable to receive Session Initiation Protocol requests. Optionally, the plurality of network elements include a plurality of optical network elements, wherein the network route includes wavelengths between a first and second optical network element in the network. The network parameters include one or more of available wavelengths, available bandwidth, available regeneration points, available circuits, intermediate network elements, and combinations thereof.

Methods and systems for session initiation protocol control of network equipment

Systems and methods for self-healing Ethernet topologies which are compatible with PBT, which use standards-based protocols, which do not self-configure, and which use Ethernet OAM are provided. Interconnected nodes are configured with a primary and secondary path which is determined by VLANs, MPLS label, Provider Backbone Bridge Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE) VLAN ID (VID), Frame Relay (FR), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Virtual Circuits (VCs), and the like. One or more head-end nodes are designated for terminating each path and for performing cross-connects between the primary and secondary paths. IEEE 802.1ag Continuity Check Messages (CCM) are transmitted by all nodes on both the primary and secondary routes. Responsive to a loss of a predetermined number of CCM messages, traffic is switched to the secondary route. In non-fault conditions, both the paths for the primary and secondary routes can carry traffic.

Systems and methods for a self-healing carrier ethernet topology

The present invention reserves special Ethernet timing packets to mark timing within Ethernet and OTN, and secondarily creates frames within the Ethernet stream through the timing marker packets. The result is standard Ethernet with timing capability that can be transported over standard Ethernet links and/or within OTN. This timing capability can be utilized to carry synchronization over asynchronous Ethernet and OTN streams. Advantageously, enabling Ethernet and OTN to carry synchronous information will de-risk switching from SONET/SDH to Ethernet and/or OTN for service providers. The present invention also includes frame decomposition of the Ethernet stream. Ethernet packets are broken into fixed bandwidth and excess bandwidth. The fixed bandwidth is subdivided into fixed (negotiated) flits, with each flit corresponding to a specific user or combination of users like a private tunnel. This offers service providers a method to provide deterministic and more secure bandwidth over Ethernet to multiple clients.

Methods and systems for carrying synchronization over Ethernet and optical transport network

The present invention utilizes an XML-based protocol for controlling a plurality of settings to tie network equipment together, such as telecommunications, cable, enterprise, wireless, etc., across different transport network technologies, including optical, wireless, TDM, and packet. Network requests are carried in self-describing XML messages that are parsed by a general XML language parser. This changes the paradigm of XML used to control data records to XML controlling network equipment. This has many benefits including the ability to better function in the new IMS infrastructures being assembled.

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Ottawa, Canada

Michael Alain Gazier