The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 27, 2004
Filed:
Aug. 08, 2000
Radia J. Perlman, Acton, MA (US);
Ariel Hendel, Cupertino, CA (US);
Daniel R. Cassiday, Topsfield, MA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A central node in a network computes for, and sends to, each node a forwarding table which consists of the set of neighbors to which the node should forward a message intended for a particular destination. The message includes a version number in the packet field header indicating which forwarding table version the node should use to forward the packet. The node does not begin marking and forwarding packets according to the new version number immediately. The node may wait a period of time after receiving the new table or may wait until receiving notification from the fabric manager to begin using the new version number. When a node receives a message from an end node, it inserts either the most recently received version number in one embodiment or uses the version dictated by the fabric manager in another embodiment. If the node receives a message from another node with a forwarding table version not resident at the node, the node will forward the packet with the most recent version of the forwarding table it has resident and change the version in the message accordingly prior to forwarding.