Alcatel Lucent

Alcatel Canada Inc.

Alcatel-lucent Canada Inc.

Wsou Investments, LLC

Mustapha Aissaoui

Pranjal Kumar Dutta

Natalie Giroux

Andrew Dolganow

Shawn P McAllister

Tiberiu Grigoriu

Raymond R Liao

Peter Roberts

Robert Elliott Robotham

Shafiq Pirbhai

Neil Hart

John Coffell

Wladyslaw Olesinski

Reda Laichi

Anand Thiagarajan

Mudashiru Busari

Michael Nghia Hua

Hamid Ould-Brahim

Jordan (Jianping) Lu

Ram Balakrishnan

Ron Haberman

Shawn Mcallister

John Coffel

The present disclosure generally discloses improvements in computer performance in communication networks, which may include improvements in computer performance in supporting discovery of ingress provider edge (PE) devices in a communication network using egress peer engineering (EPE) and software defined networking (SDN). The ingress PE devices of a network may have peering relationships with an egress peer link of an egress peer node of the network. The ingress PE devices may be discovered by identifying a set of traffic flows on an egress peer link of an egress peer node, identifying a set of ingress PE devices that have peering relationships with the egress peer node, determining bandwidth usage information, selecting, from the set of ingress PE devices based on the bandwidth usage information, a set of selected ingress PE devices, and initiating a management action for at least one of the selected ingress PE devices.

Discovery of ingress provider edge devices in egress peering networks

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a provider edge node and a method performed on the node including one or more of the following: storing, in a cache on the node, an association between an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the customer edge device and a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the customer edge device; storing, in a backup memory in the node, a copy of the last-known IP address of the customer edge device; removing the stored association from the cache in response to a cache-clearing event, while maintaining the copy of the last-known IP address in the backup memory; sending an address discovery message, the address discovery message requesting an updated MAC address corresponding to the last-known IP address maintained in the backup memory; and updating the cache to reflect the updated MAC address upon receipt of an additional address update message from the customer edge device.

Virtual leased line address resolution protocol cache for customer edge internet protocol addresses

Virtual connection route selection apparatus and techniques are disclosed. At a communication traffic routing apparatus, metric information associated with multiple different routes for a virtual connection, such as a PseudoWire, toward a destination is collected. The metric information may be collected from one or more remote route computation elements capable of computing routes for virtual connections between the routing apparatus and other routing apparatus over an underlying communication system, or during actual establishment of the virtual connections, for example. An initial or re-optimized route for a virtual connection can then be selected at the routing apparatus based on the collected metric information. In some embodiments, although the virtual connection routes are paths computed by Path Computation Elements (PCEs), actual path selection decisions are distributed to routers.

Virtual connection route selection apparatus and techniques

A method and apparatus for generating an IPv6 compliant label distribution protocol (LDP) control plane packet at a Label Switched Router (LSR).

System and method for using label distribution protocol (LDP) in IPv6 networks

A method and apparatus for implementing multiple Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) Label Switch Router (LSR) instances sharing a common data plane at a network element or node.

System and method for implementing multiple label distribution protocol (LDP) instances in a network node

A system, method and apparatus for controlling traffic forwarding at a label switched router (LSR) to implement thereby a constrained traffic forwarding application, such as a data plane fate separation between different FEC types.

System and method for data plane fate separation of label distribution protocol (LDP) label switched paths (LSPs)

In source routed or hop-by-hop routed protocol communication networks, when congestion is detected at a certain network element, a notification message is sent to nodes. The nodes keep track of congestion condition and generally have knowledge of the congestion, thereby allowing them to make more intelligent routing decisions, i.e., rate controlling messages, routing traffic around congestion, regulating admission at the edge of the network. The intelligent routing decision is based on the congestion condition indicated by a restriction level which is periodically and dynamically updated.

Intelligent routing for effective utilization of network signaling resources

A method for testing connectivity of a multi-segment pseudo-wire ('MS-PW') in a network, the method comprising: sending an echo request message from a first provider edge ('PE') device to a second provider edge (&#x201c;PE&#x201d;) device for a section of the multi-segment pseudo-wire (&#x201c;MS-PW&#x201d;) between the first provider edge (&#x201c;PE&#x201d;) device and the second provider edge (&#x201c;PE&#x201d;) device; the echo request message being identified as such by a control word contained therein; an inner label of the echo request message having a time-to-live (&#x201c;TTL&#x201d;) value set to a number of segments in the section; the time-to-live (&#x201c;TTL&#x201d;) value for determining whether the control word is to be inspected as it traverses the section; upon the echo request message arriving at the second provider edge (&#x201c;PE&#x201d;) device, the second provider edge (&#x201c;PE&#x201d;) device recognizing the echo request message as such by inspecting the control word contained therein; and, receiving an echo reply message from the second provider edge (&#x201c;PE&#x201d;) device in response to the echo request message, the echo reply message confirming connectivity of the section.

Method and system for verifying connectivity of multi-segment pseudo-wires

A method for testing connectivity of a multi-segment pseudo-wire in a packet switched network, the method comprising: (a) sending an echo request message from a first provider edge device to a second provider edge device for a first segment of the multi-segment pseudo-wire between the first provider edge device and the second provider edge device; and, (b) receiving an echo reply message from the second provider edge device in response to the echo request message, the echo reply message: confirming connectivity of the first segment; indicating whether there is a second segment in the multi-segment pseudo-wire between the second provider edge device and a third provider edge device; and, if there is a second segment, including information pertaining to the second segment.

Method and system for verifying connectivity of multi-segment pseudo-wires by tracing

Various embodiments are a method for negotiating datapath treatment for traffic sourced from a first communications network over an end-to-end path in respect of a path segment provided for the traffic in a second communications network, the path segment being requested for a first node of the second communications network and being targeted to a second node of the second communications node. The method comprises: for the first node, notifying that a datapath capability for the path segment is one for selection for the second node; communicating datapath capabilities associated with the first node; selecting, for the second node, a datapath capability from the datapath capabilities so communicated; communicating the datapath capability so selected for the second node back to the first node; and wherein the path segment is established using a signaling protocol of the second communications network. Various embodiments are also be implemented in a corresponding communications node.

Negotiation of datapath treatment for end-to-end interworked network traffic

A method and apparatus for scheduling and servicing events using a calendar structure is described. In accordance with one preferred embodiment of the present invention, a calendar structure is provided to implement work-conserving methods (for example, queuing, such as fair queuing, or, as one specific example, weighted fair queuing (WFQ)). Such a calendar structure preferably provides two slots per tier and uses a temporal pointer based on virtual time. In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention, a calendar structure is provided to implement shaping of flows of information. Such a calendar structure preferably provides one slot per tier and uses a temporal pointer based on real time. For scheduling, a preferred occurrence time at which an event is preferred to occur is calculated. Events having preferred occurrence times farther from a current time value denoted by the temporal pointer are scheduled on a calendar tiers of lower resolution, while events having preferred occurrence times nearer to the current time value denoted by the temporal pointer are scheduled on calendar tiers of higher resolution. For servicing, the events are selected from slots to which the temporal pointer is pointing. If a slot is being used to schedule an event pending servicing, the slot is considered to be an occupied slot. Occupied slots at higher resolution calendar tiers are serviced exhaustively over occupied slots at lower resolution calendar tiers.

Method and apparatus for scheduling and servicing events using a calendar structure

In a method of fair queue servicing at a queuing point in a multi-service class packet switched network, incoming packets are received in buffers and outgoing packets are scheduled by a weighted fair queue scheduler. Real-time information of buffer usage along with the minimum bandwidth requirement is used to dynamically modify the weights of the weighted fair queue scheduler.

Fair queue servicing using dynamic weights (DWFQ)

The method of the invention includes the step of transmitting a priority indicator containing information indicating the priority of network traffic over a connection to a downstream node in a communications network. The downstream node has a queue for queuing traffic received over the connection and the queue has an adjustable discard range. After transmitting the priority indicator, the network traffic is transmitted over the connection. When the priority indicator is received at the downstream node the discard range is adjusted to correspond to the priority indicated in the priority indicator. At the downstream node the network traffic is stored in the queue if a queue congestion measure is outside the discard range and discarded if the queue congestion measure is within the discard range. The priority indicator may be a Resource Management cell or may be provided in the header of a cell carrying the network traffic.

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Kanata, Canada

Mustapha Aissaoui