International Business Machines Corporation

Lenovo (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Naveen C Sekhara

Yuan Wx Li

Tamanna Zackaria Sait

Venkatesan Selvaraj

Chidambaram Bhagavathiperumal

Angu Selvam Chandra Sekaran

Ashok K Somosundaram

Daniel W Tai

Raluca Voicu

In one embodiment, a networking switch includes an interswitch link (ISL) interface configured to communicate with a second networking switch via an ISL and a networking port configured to connect to an access switch in Layer-2 (L2) via a virtual link aggregation (vLAG) with the second networking switch. The networking switch includes a virtual router redundancy protocol (VRRP) module configured to perform active interact protocol (IP) forwarding. Moreover, the VRRP module is configured to indicate a status of the networking switch to the second networking switch via the ISL. The status is one of: initialization when the networking switch is not currently active (INIT), back-up status when the networking switch is acting as a back-up switch (BACK-UP), or master status when the networking switch is acting as a master switch (MASTER). In addition, the networking switch is positioned at a boundary between L2 and Layer-3 (L3).

Active IP forwarding in an event driven virtual link aggregation (vLAG) system

A PIM vLAG network load balancing system includes a first vLAG switch and a second vLAG switch each connected to, and receive data traffic from, an upstream network device. The first and second vLAG switches balance network data traffic by both determining a source IP address and a multicast group address associated with the received data traffic, hashing the addresses, combining the hashed addresses to determine a resultant value, and either dropping or transmitting the received data traffic to a downstream network device based upon the resultant value. The first vLAG switch may transmit and the second vLAG switch may drop the received data traffic if the resultant value is a first binary value. The second vLAG switch may transmit and the first vLAG switch may drop the received data traffic if the resultant value is a second binary value.

VLAG PIM multicast traffic load balancing

In one embodiment, a method for managing virtual link aggregation (vLAG) includes coupling a first networking switch with a second networking switch using an interswitch link (ISL), wherein the first networking switch is positioned at a boundary between Layer-2 (L2) and Layer-3 (L3), and wherein the second networking switch is positioned at the boundary between L2 and L3; creating a virtual link aggregation (vLAG) comprising connections between the first and second networking switches and an access switch in L2, wherein each networking switch comprises a virtual router redundancy protocol (VRRP) module; and interacting and modifying a VRRP state machine to perform active internet protocol (IP) forwarding when a connection between one of the networking switches and the access switch fails or one of the networking switches does not function properly.

In one embodiment, a networking system includes a first networking switch positioned at a boundary between Layer-2 (L2) and Layer-3 (L3), the first networking switch including a first virtual router redundancy protocol (VRRP) module, a second networking switch connected to the first networking switch via an interswitch link (ISL), the second networking switch being positioned at the boundary between L2 and L3 and including a second VRRP module, and an access switch positioned in L2, the access switch being configured to be connected to the first and second networking switches in a virtual link aggregation (vLAG), the first VRRP module being configured to perform active internet protocol (IP) forwarding when the second networking switch is not performing active IP forwarding, and the second VRRP module being configured to perform active IP forwarding when the first networking switch is not performing active IP forwarding.

Active IP forwarding in an event driven virtual link aggregation (VLAG) system

In one embodiment, a system includes at least one local processor adapted for executing logic, logic adapted for receiving a packet from an access switch on a virtual link aggregation (vLAG) port of a first switch, logic adapted for modifying a source media access control (MAC) address of the packet to include a MAC address of the first switch, wherein a last byte of the modified source MAC address includes a trunk identifier of the vLAG port on which the packet was received, and logic adapted for forwarding the packet to an inter-switch link (ISL) port. Other systems, methods, and computer program products are presented according to more embodiments.

Growing community of inventors

Milpitas, CA, United States of America

Naveen C Sekhara