Nortel Networks Corporation

Scott S Pegrum

Matthew Yuen

Nabila Ould-Brahim

Alicja Celer

Gregory A Wilbur

Failover protection is provided on the same facilities for a network connection passing through a high-availability router having shared resources managed by two control processors that respectively maintain a forwarding information bases (FIB). The two processors run asynchronously in a master/standby relationship. Integrity of processes running on the control processors is monitored and a forwarding engine forwards packets according to a FIB maintained by an in-service one of the control processors. If one of the control processors fails, the other control processor uses the same bandwidth on the same facility to continue forwarding packets for a network connection. Identifiers in each packet associated with the network connection are used to indicate the reserved bandwidth associated with the network connection.

High-availability packet forwarding apparatus and method

A high availability packet forwarding router for an internet protocol (IP) network, includes two control processors, one or more service termination cards (STCs) with forwarding information bases (FIBs), and a packet forwarding engine. The two processors run asynchronously in a master/standby relationship. Integrity of processes running on the control processors is monitored and the forwarding engine forwards packets according to a FIB maintained by an in-service one of the control processors. Hitless failover and hitless software upgrades are supported.

High availability packet forward apparatus and method

Data traffic is conveyed through a node of a communications network. A parameter respecting the data traffic is assigned in an ingress interface of the node, and inserted into an intra-switch header attached to each packet. The data traffic, along with the intra-switch header are forwarded across the node to an egress interface. The parameter is then extracted from the intra-switch header, and used to control processing of the data traffic in the egress interface. The parameter may provide information identifying the source of the data traffic, but may also include other flow-specific information, such as, for example, a normalized DiffServ Code Point. The parameter may be used, in combination with an intra-switch multicast group ID to query one or more translation tables, to thereby enable egress-interface and/or egress port specific replication, forwarding and translation services in respect of the data traffic.

Method and apparatus for routing data traffic across a multicast-capable fabric

Upper layer 3 routing in conjunction with self-healing lower layer networks is more informed by the addition of reachability costs determined in the lower layer. Maintenance changes on the self-healing network are monitored. A change causes revision of reachability costs. The revised costs are communicated by lower layer logic to upper layer logic.

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Nepean, Canada

Scott S Pegrum