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:
May. 14, 2013
Filed:
Oct. 20, 2010
Nitin Jain, Saratoga, CA (US);
Lee Chen, Saratoga, CA (US);
Earl Ferguson, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
Min Zhu, San Jose, CA (US);
Nitin Jain, Saratoga, CA (US);
Lee Chen, Saratoga, CA (US);
Earl Ferguson, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
Min Zhu, San Jose, CA (US);
Foundry Networks, LLC, San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A routing system utilizes a layer 2 switch interconnecting several routers to intelligently forward multicast packets throughout an internet exchange carrying multicast content. The layer 2 switch performs protocol snooping to extract a lookup key that is based on network layer protocol information. The lookup key is uniquely formulated to support either shared or explicit source distribution trees. The lookup key is used to query a forwarding memory that returns an outgoing port index. The outgoing port index points to one or more outgoing ports that are eligible to receive the multicast packet. The outgoing ports are also connected to the neighboring device(s) that are designated to receive the multicast packet. The routing system also supports real time maintenance and updating of the forwarding memory based on the periodic exchange of control messages. The routing system is configured to support PIM routers operating in PIM SM or PIM SSM modes. However, the routing system can also support other multicast protocols and/or standards.