Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Phanindra Jujjavarapu

Israel Cidon

Raphael J Rom

Asad Khamisy

Moshe Sidi

Man-Tung Tony Hsiao

In a communication network having a set of hosts and switch based label swapping communication nodes, each node has a control processor that is also a host that sends and receives messages via the switching apparatus in its associated node. At least one of the hosts includes a distribution tree set up procedure. That procedure stores source and destination data designating a set of source hosts and a set of destination hosts in the communication network, and defines a distribution tree of virtual connections. The designated source hosts and destination hosts may include the control processors of some or all the network nodes. The defined virtual connections include a virtual connection from each designated source host to all of the designated destination hosts, and message labels for all messages sent by the source hosts to be routed to the destination nodes. The virtual connections convey each message from the source hosts that have the defined message labels to all the designated destination hosts as a single multicast message. The message labels are defined so that overlapping portions of the virtual connections use the same message labels. All the nodes in the distribution tree are programmed by sending one or more virtual connection set up messages that instruct the nodes in the distribution tree on the label swapping data to be stored in each such node.

System for defining multicast message distribution paths having

In a communication network having a set of hosts and switch based label swapping communication nodes, each node has a control processor that is also a host that sends and receives messages via the switching apparatus in its associated node. Each node's control processor also includes a virtual connection (VC) traversal procedure that implements the methodology of the present invention. The control processor of any node along an established connection can initiate the transmission of a VC traversal message to the control processors of all the nodes along the connection. The VC traversal message is transmitted as one or more ATM cells, where each cell includes a standard ATM header for routing the cell to a neighboring node's control processor, as well as a VC traversal header in the body of the cell that identifies the connection being traversed. When a node receives a VC traversal message with a VC traversal header in it, the virtual connection traversal procedure in the receiving node processes that message by (A) performing whatever command is indicated in the VC traversal header, (B) routing a copy of the VC traversal message to the control processor of each node to which a data cell on the connection being traversed would be sent, and (C) performing a VC traversal header swapping operation on each such copy of the VC traversal message so that the VC traversal header in each forwarded VC traversal message identifies the segment of the connection being traversed by the control message.

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Pleasanton, CA, United States of America

Phanindra Jujjavarapu