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:
Jun. 08, 2010
Filed:
Jul. 15, 2004
Thippanna Hongal, San Jose, CA (US);
Prashanth Ishwar, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Rahul S. Kasralikar, San Jose, CA (US);
John Rigby, Reading, GB;
Krishna Sankaran, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Ramanaravanan Ramakrishnan, San Jose, CA (US);
Thippanna Hongal, San Jose, CA (US);
Prashanth Ishwar, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Rahul S. Kasralikar, San Jose, CA (US);
John Rigby, Reading, GB;
Krishna Sankaran, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Ramanaravanan Ramakrishnan, San Jose, CA (US);
Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc., Murray Hill, NJ (US);
Abstract
Path information is obtained in a VPLS-based network by generating special Layer 2 frames (referred to herein as 'trace-request frames'), performing source MAC filtering to identify the trace-request frames, and generating a special frame (referred to herein as a 'trace-reply frame') when the source MAC filtering identifies a trace-request frame. Upon identifying a trace-request frame, path information is collected and embedded into the trace-reply frame. The trace-reply frame is then sent to the originating node where the path information is used to learn the path that the trace-request frame traversed. By sending multiple trace-request frames with different source MAC addresses, path information received from source MAC filtering at different nodes in the VPLS-based network can be collected and used to learn an entire path of interest.