Cisco Technology, Inc.

Metricom, Inc.

Milton Y Xu

Liqin Dong

Padmanabhan Krishnan

Abhijit Patra

Robert L Packer

Suran Saminda De Silva

Ravikanth Samprathi

Jeffrey Ym Wang

Rodney Fong

Peram Marimuthu

John Bettendorff

A system and a method for automatically detecting and configuring server uplink network interfaces in a network environment. An exemplary method includes receiving a discovery packet from a network element on a network interface of a server connected to the network element; evaluating the discovery packet to determine whether the network element possesses virtual bridging capabilities; and configuring the network interface of the server as an uplink interface for communicating with a network when the discovery packet indicates that the network element possesses virtual bridging capabilities.

System and method for automatically detecting and configuring server uplink network interface

In one embodiment, a load-balancing algorithm ensures that both network nodes at endpoints of a group of physical links aggregated into a logical channel are using the same load-sharing algorithm and also ensures that the load-sharing algorithm is normalized so that the same flow traverses the same physical link in both directions.

Multinode symmetric load sharing

A method for providing BGP route updates in an MPLS network is disclosed. The route update is performed at a router having a forwarding information table containing BGP routes and an internal label, and an adjacency table containing BGP/VPN labels and said internal label. The internal label corresponds to at least one IGP route and has an adjacency associated therewith. The method includes updating the adjacency associated with the internal label following an IGP route change.

Method for recursive BGP route updates in MPLS networks

A method for defining hardware routing paths for networks having IP and MPLS paths generally comprises assigning a path ID for each path within a path group. The path ID for each path is an IP address and the path group contains all IP paths, all MPLS paths, or both IP and MPLS paths. The path ID for each MPLS path is a unique IP multicast address. The method further includes comparing all path IDs in each path group and assigning a common hardware resource to groups having matching path IDs.

Method and system for defining hardware routing paths for networks having IP and MPLS paths

Only one point to multipoint virtual circuit (p2mp VC) is used within a router to handle all of the sources for a particular multicast group when other particulars of the multicast group are identical within that router. The router receiving a multicast packet for a particular multicast group identifies the source and the group number by reading fields of the incoming packet, identifies the input port of the router, and identifies the output port list. The input port of the router, the group number G, and the output port list are used by the router in establishing and identifying a point to multipoint VC within the router. The invention identifies all packets arriving at that particular input port, having the same multicast group number G, and having the same output port list, and transfers them to the identified VC. The VC is associated in the routing table with the output list of ports from which copies of the multicast packet are transmitted. Accordingly, only one VC is needed to transfer packets arising from any source of the multicast group so long as the multicast packets arrive on the same port of the router and have the same output port list.

VC sharing for multicast in a computer network

In a wireless frequency hopping communication system, a protocol, which does not employ carrier sense or collision detect, is provided for allocating bandwidth fairly and efficiently under varying load conditions, wherein a node is permitted random access to the medium bandwidth under light loading conditions and wherein under higher loading conditions a time/bandwidth allocation is made with a portion of the allocation dedicated to inband backhaul tasks by introducing a form of polling, the size of the reserved time/bandwidth allocation being selected based on traffic pattern. Under such heavy load conditions, non-slave traffic is allocated bandwidth in slots as pseudo-slave packets to guarantee a share of the bandwidth. Depending on the activity of the population of packets, including responsiveness and trend of responsiveness, the relative size of the slots is determined. Random access is always permitted for certain classes of packets, namely handshake packets, which are used to establish the master/slave relationships between nodes, no matter how a node is loaded. Once a master/slave relationship is established, a slave is only allowed to use the random access method to inform its master that it has data pending for transmission to the network when the node has a light load. Polling is always employed when the node at least has one active slave. According to one aspect of the invention, the size of the reserved allocation is based on a variable heartbeat of a multicast poll. Further in accordance with the invention, a handshaking between master and slave permits transition between operation in a random access mode and a polled mode.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Milton Y Xu