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:
Oct. 28, 2008
Filed:
Dec. 30, 2004
Kaushik P. Biswas, San Jose, CA (US);
Senthil M. Sivakumar, Cupertino, CA (US);
Melinda L. Shore, Ithaca, CA (US);
Kaushik P. Biswas, San Jose, CA (US);
Senthil M. Sivakumar, Cupertino, CA (US);
Melinda L. Shore, Ithaca, CA (US);
Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
Disclosed are methods and apparatus for facilitating translation of packet addresses (or ports) by one or more translation devices (e.g., Network Address Translation or NAT devices) using a specialized protocol to handle an address (or port) that is used to form part of a payload. In one implementation, this specialized protocol is referred to as Network Layer Signaling (NLS). As a packet traverses along a path containing one or more translation devices, each translation device is configured to translate an address (or port) of such packet's IP header if the packet is traversing between different domains (e.g., traversing between a private and public domain or between two different private domains). One or more of these translation devices may also be configured to implement the specialized protocol which includes translation device traversal mechanisms for detecting whether the traversal path contains a translation device that fails to implement such specialized protocol. When such a failure is detected, recovery mechanisms are also triggered.