3713 results about "Routing control plane" patented technology

A Provider Network Controller (PNC) addresses the challenges in building services across Next Generation Network (NGN) architectures and creates an abstraction layer as a bridge, or glue, between the network transport and applications running over it. The PNC is a multi-layer, multi-vendor dynamic control plane that implements service activation and Layer 0-2 management tools for multiple transport technologies including Carrier Ethernet, Provider Backbone Transport (PBT), Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS), Transport MPLS (T-MPLS), optical and integrated networking platforms. Decoupling transport controls and services from the network equipment simplifies service creation and provides options for carriers to choose best-in-class equipment that leverages the PNC to enable rapid creation and management of transports and services. The PNC provides Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) interfaces to abstract transport objects expressly designed to support both wholesale and retail services, and supports service offerings with varied bandwidth and Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, thus achieving enterprise Ethernet economics.

In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a processor configured for operation in a control plane in a distributed virtual switch in communication with a plurality of virtual machines each having a virtual interface. The processor is operable to identify other control planes in the distributed virtual switch, assign a virtual interface identifier to one of the virtual interfaces, receive a configuration for the virtual interface, and share the configuration with the other control planes in the distributed virtual switch. The virtual interface identifier provides a unique identifier for the virtual interface across all of the control planes. The apparatus further includes memory for storing the configuration of the virtual interface. A method for operating a network device associated with a control in the distributed virtual switch is also disclosed.

An embodiment of the exemplary SoftRouter architecture includes two physically separate networks, a control plane network and a data plane network. The data plane network is one physical network for the data traffic, while the control plane network is another physical network for the control traffic. The topology of the data plane network is made up of interconnected forwarding elements (FEs). The topology of the control plane network is made up interconnected control elements (CEs). This physical independence of the control plane network from the data plane network provides for a secure mechanism to communicate among the CEs in the control plane network. In addition, this physical independence provides improved reliability and improved scalability, when compared to the traditional router architecture, where control plane message are in-band with the data plane.

A system and technique restarts a data plane of an intermediate node, such as an aggregation router, of a computer network without changing the state of a control plane in the router. The aggregation router comprises a control plane that includes a supervisor processor configured to manage traffic forwarding operations of the node. To that end, the supervisor processor maintains a current state of the control plane pertaining to, e.g., routing protocols and interface states of line cards within the router. The aggregation router further comprises a data plane that includes hardware components, such as a forwarding engine, configured to perform forwarding operations for data forwarded by the router.

Switching and routing functions may be provided in a data plane of a network switch by having all functions and algorithms needed to handle all related interface, logical and physical, under one interface manager to keep track of bindings between virtual interfaces and logical interfaces, as well as maintain the statuses of ports that belong to the virtual interface and the actual logical ports. When the actual interface goes down, the virtual interface may go down along with it. The bindings may also include definitions. All of these bindings may be located in a single routing information base (RIB) database, eliminating the need for multiple bindings to be kept in various places. Furthermore, a hardware abstraction layer in the control plane can also then be mirrored in the data plane, eliminating the need for the customer to create a layer performing the same tasks.

A system and method to intercept traffic at standard interface points as defined by Cellular/Wireless networks (GSM/GPRS, 3G/UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA, CDMA, WIMAX, LTE), emulate the respective protocols on either side of the interception point, extract user/application payloads within the intercepted packets, perform optimizations, and re-encapsulate with the same protocol, and deliver the content transparently is disclosed. The optimizations include but are not limited to Content Caching, prediction & pre-fetching of frequently used content, performance of content-aware transport optimizations (TCP, UDP, RTP etc.) for reducing back-haul bandwidth, and improvement of user experience. An additional embodiment of the current invention includes injecting opportunistic content (location based, profile based or advertisement content) based on the information derived while monitoring control plane protocols.

Embodiments are provided for implementing control plane functionality to configure a data plane at a plurality of network nodes. A software defined topology (SDT) component is configured to determine a data plane logical topology indicating a plurality of selected nodes and a logical architecture connecting the selected nodes. The data plane logical topology enables traffic delivery for a service or virtual network for an end-customer or operator. A software defined networking (SDN) component is configured to interact with the SDT component and map the data plane logical topology to a physical network. The mapping includes allocating network nodes including the selected nodes and network resources which enable communications for the service or virtual network and meet QoS requirement. A software defined protocol (SDP) component is configured to interact with the SDN and define data plane protocol and process functionality for the network nodes.

A Virtual Communication Environment to support virtual switching engines for layer 2 switches is described. The virtual layer 2 switching engines allow many virtual switches to be created in a CPU or across multiple CPUs in switching hardware. The virtual switch engines reduce the inter-communication costs in memory, CPU, inter-process bandwidth, and fabric bandwidth. This reduction in the cost per Virtual Switch device allows either more virtual switches to be contained within a control plane or more applications per switch control plane.

Live router migration is implemented by separating the logical features of a virtual router from its physical features. Tunnels are established between a source (physical) router and a destination (physical) router, allowing the control plane of the virtual router being migrated to send and receive messages from the destination router. The control plane information is then transferred to the destination router, which functions to clone the data plane at the destination router. Outgoing links from the destination router are then be established. The double appearance of the data plane at both the source and destination routers allows for the data plane information to be transferred asynchronously over to the destination router. Once all of the data plane information has been transferred, incoming data traffic links at the destination router can be established and the tunnels between the routers taken down.

The invention relates to a home cellular base station (HeNB), comprising a radio interface (RI), to communicate with a user equipment (UE), a local interface (LI), to communicate with a local gateway (L-GW) providing access to a local IP network, a user plane interface (S1-U), to communicate with a serving gateway (SGW), and a control plane interface (S1-MME), to communicate with a control node (MME). The home cellular base station (HeNB) further comprises a selection module (SelMod) set to obtain a first correlation ID for enabling a direct user plane path between the home cellular base station (HeNB) and the local gateway (L-GW), the first correlation ID being obtained via the control plane interface (S1-MME) upon each establishment of a bearer providing access to the local IP network.

The invention also relates to a control node (MME), to a home subscriber server (HSS), to a direct path enablement method, and to a PDN management method.

A method and system for interworking between an Ethernet communication network and a frame relay network, in which a first network interface is operable to communicate with the Ethernet communication network using an Ethernet communication protocol. A second network interface is operable to communicate with the frame relay communication network using a frame relay protocol. A processing unit is in communication with the first network interface and the second network interface, in which the processing unit encapsulates frames received from the Ethernet network into frame relay frames, decapsulates frames received from the frame relay network to recover Ethernet frames and maps parameters corresponding to the received one of the frame relay and Ethernet frames into the other of the frame relay and Ethernet frames, the mapped parameters including connection configuration control plane information and data plane parameters corresponding to individual frames.

A multicast non-stop forwarding (NSF) router architecture enhances high availability of a multicast router in a computer network. The router architecture further preserves multicast data forwarding through a data plane during NSF recovery of one or more failures in a control plane of the router. Various multicast components of the router cooperate to provide a checkpointing and recovery technique of the multicast NSF architecture that enables efficient restart and recovery of the control plane failures without loss of data connectivity.

According to various embodiments of the invention, a system and method for controlling a file system. In some embodiments, a control plane interposes between a data plane user and a data plane, intercepts file system operations, and performs control plane operations upon the file system operations. In one such embodiment, the system and method is implemented between a data plane user that is a local file system user and a data plane that is a local file system. In another such embodiment, the system and method is implemented between a data plane user that is a client and a data plane that is a file server. Furthermore, for an embodiment where the control plane that interposes between a client and a file server, the control plane can be implemented as a file system proxy. Control plane operations include, but are not limited to, observation, verification, and transformation of a file system operation.

As described herein, explicit service ordering information may be associated with each of a plurality of logical services in a service path. A unique sequence number, for example, may be assigned, and associated with each service in the path. The sequence number may be assigned by a service broker in the control plane of a service insertion architecture that provides a platform-independent framework to insert services into a network. The sequence number may represent the relative ordering of the service with respect to the other services in the path. The sequence number, along with a traffic classification identifier, constitutes the shared context that is tagged to the packet injected into the chain which is used in the SIA data plane to virtualize and uniquely select series of services defined in the policy.

A method and a system for maintaining session continuity, in which the system includes: a Handover Source Function (HOSF), a Handover Destination Function (HODF), a Handover Anchor Function-Control Plane (HOAF-CP) and a Handover Anchor Function-User Plane (HOAF-UP). The method includes: a first user establishing a connection through the HOSF with the HOAF-CP and the HOAF-UP which correspond to a second user, so as to establishing a session with the second user; during session handover, the HODF that corresponds to the HOSF establishing another connection with the HOAF-CP and HOAF-UP though which the first user continues the session with the second user, so as to maintain the session continuity. When the access address or the access means of the terminal changes, or even the terminal changes during a session, embodiments of the present invention can logically replace the connection before the handover with a new connection to ensure the session continuity.

A method and system for using a communication network having a relay node to provide wireless communication with a mobile station. A ranging region is established with the mobile station in which the establishment of the ranging region includes the transmission of control information corresponding to the relay node. The mobile station is allowed to enter the communication network. The relay node is used to wirelessly communicate with the mobile station in at least one of the uplink and downlink directions.