Nortel Networks Corporation

Northern Telecom Limited

Pierre Cousineau

Bruce Eric Buffam

Mieczyslaw Juliusz Surazski

Diana M Chapman

Paul P Beaubien

Wing K Ling

James A Cobban

Al L Bryenton

Fotis Xipolatakis

N Anantha Narayanan

Multiple connections between switches that share the same Quality of Service (QoS) requirements are multiplexed onto a single virtual connection or switched path. The switched path may be established using a known standard or proprietary protocol, or even without knowledge of the underlying protocol. Provisioning and management software provided on the switches create originating and destination end points. When the network operator provisions an end point, a switched path call setup request is made to a networking interface which establishes a connection using a selected routing system through the network having the provisioned characteristics, such as bandwidth and QoS, of the switched path.

Method and system for multi-service cut-through switching through a connection-oriented network

In LAN interconnect, it is necessary to perform route discovery to locate a destination device. A novel method of selecting designated source routing bridges and a new single-route broadcast scheme using those selected bridges are disclosed. The invention makes use of intelligent source routing bridges which connect LAN segments. In order to configure a single-route broadcast path to each connected LAN, a selection procedure is performed among source routing bridges according to the present invention to ensure that there is only one path between two connecting LAN segments. In one embodiment, a packet switching network is used as a WAN which interconnects many LAN segments by way of a virtual ring created in the WAN and the present invention chooses only one path between the individual LAN segment and the virtual ring.

Single-route broadcast for LAN interconnection

Growing community of inventors

Nepean, Canada

Pierre Cousineau