International Business Machines Corporation

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Cisco Systems Inc.

Richard Colbert Matlack, Jr

Jimmy Philip Ervin

Deepak Vig

John T Lloyd

Cedell Adam Alexander, Jr

Edward Hau-chun Ku

Kenneth J Christensen

Jim Philip Ervin

Douglas Ray Henderson

John C Pescatore

Ronald J Cooper

Pramod Narottambhai Patel

Mario A Marsico

Robert L Smith, Jr

Norman Eugene Cox

Jean Huey Wingler

James Philip Ervin

Mechanism for use in an internetworking device incorporating a translational bridging function to provide load balancing across multiple instances of the same destination address. Traffic originating with clients in the transparently bridged domain is distributed over multiple communication paths to the multiple instances of the destination address in the source route bridging domain. The internetworking device sends an explorer frame over each interface in the source route bridging domain to discover all parallel paths to the destination address. The internetworking device receives a response from each instance of the destination address over all possible paths. The routing information contained in the responses is used to create entries in a cache in the internetworking device. Load balancing is performed by using the source address of the transparently bridged clients as a key to select a specific path for each such client. Frames originating with different clients in the transparent bridging domain are then distributed over the selected paths to the same destination address.

Load balancing mechanism for a translational bridge environment

A communication network having a plurality of routers, each connected to host systems by LAN networks and interconnected by a switched network uses a shared or common IP and MAC address in the routers. Host systems on the same subnet use the shared or common IP address as their default gateway address when accessing host systems on another subnet.

Method for configuring distributed internet protocol gateways with LAN emulation

A route switching layer is provided to end stations on a local area network (LAN) segment between the network layer protocol stack and the LAN adapter device driver. The route switching layer reads the network layer protocol header in a data frame queued for transmission. If the data frame is destined for a station on a different LAN segment, the route switching layer compares the network layer address with entries stored in a local address table. If a match occurs, the route switching layer inserts the corresponding data link layer address from the table in the data link header that is appended to the data frame. The data frame is then transmitted directly from source to destination end station by a hardware switch. If an address table match does not occur, the source station route switching layer sends a query to a route server device for the data link layer address corresponding to the network layer address of the destination end station. The route server sends a response to the source station route switching layer which then stores the destination address information in the local address table.

Method and system for distributing network routing functions to local area network stations

A communication network having a plurality of routers, each connected to a host system by a LAN network and interconnected by a switched network, the common network using a shared or common IP and MAC address in the routers forming a subnet. Host systems on the same subnet use the shared or common IP address as their default gateway address when accessing host systems on another subnet.

Method for configuring distributed internet protocol gateways with lan

A method of parsing frame headers for routing data frames within a computer network is disclosed. In accordance with the method and system of the present invention, a data frame is first received from a computer network. A frame header of the data frame is then parsed into multiple test units of identical lengths. A test vector is subsequently assigned to each of the test units, wherein each test vector includes a reference pattern field and an action code pointer field. A number of test blocks are constructed by inserting each of the test vectors into a corresponding slot of various test blocks. Finally, a search tree is constructed by utilizing these various test blocks, and each test block is associated with each other test block via the test vectors contained within.

Method and system of parsing frame headers for routing data frames

A communications concentrator and message multiplexer featuring direct access from the communications adapters to main memory via direct memory access means which eliminates the usual scanner or polling facility in a concentrator or multiplexer is described. A control microprocessor manages the allocation of memory, the conversion of message protocols and the servicing of interrupts to a plurality of port interface adapter microprocessors. The interface adapter microprocessors directly set up and control the DMA operation instead of having the DMA operation controlled by the control processor. One of the port adapters serves as a service adapter over a dedicated interface allowing a remote disgnostician access to internal registers in the control processor system, access to a dedicated read only storage for servicing, and logical interface to the main control processor for the purpose of entering instructions and directing functional operations to test each component of the system.

Scannerless message concentrator and communications multiplexer

Growing community of inventors

Raleigh, NC, United States of America

Richard Colbert Matlack, Jr