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. 18, 2011
Filed:
Aug. 08, 2005
Senthil Arunachalam, Fremont, CA (US);
Sundher Narayanaswamy, San Jose, CA (US);
Isidoros Kouvelas, Redwood City, CA (US);
Ishan Wu, Cupertino, CA (US);
Toerless Eckert, Mountain View, CA (US);
Senthil Arunachalam, Fremont, CA (US);
Sundher Narayanaswamy, San Jose, CA (US);
Isidoros Kouvelas, Redwood City, CA (US);
Ishan Wu, Cupertino, CA (US);
Toerless Eckert, Mountain View, CA (US);
Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A method, system, computer program product and apparatus are presented to enable a L2 network device, such as a bridge or switch, to control the flow of a multicast data stream to a connected router in response to control messages received from the router by the L2 network device. By controlling the flow of multicast data streams in this manner, there will be a corresponding reduction in wasted bandwidth due to unnecessary transmission of these multicast data streams and a reduction in processing overhead by the router due to analysis and dropping of unnecessary multicast frames. In one aspect of the present invention, the router can generate the control messages in response to receiving a data frame in a multicast data stream from the L2 network device. The router can determine whether a subscriber to that multicast data stream is connected downstream of the router and then transmit an appropriate control message to the upstream L2 network device, indicating whether the router does or does not have a downstream subscriber. In response to such a control message, the L2 network device can cease transmitting the multicast data stream to the router, if appropriate.