摘要:
An improved network router having a plurality of intelligent router ports. Each intelligent router port may have its own routing and/or forwarding engines. Thus, a centralized master routing and forwarding engine, existing in conventional routers, is not necessary. Accordingly, the bottlenecking problems associated with a centralized routing and forwarding engine are significantly reduced.
摘要:
Multiple LAN emulation servers (LESs) and broadcast and unknown servers (BUSs) are employed to serve a single emulated LAN (ELAN). The LAN emulation clients (LECs) are assigned to sub-ELANs, each of which includes several LECs of the ELAN, e.g., those that are geographically close. Each such sub-ELAN includes its own LES and BUS. The LESs and BUSs of the sub-ELANs are connected so that the sub-ELANs form a single ELAN. The LESs/BUSs can be interconnected in any pattern that allows each LES/BUS to communicate with each other LES/BUS via at least one path, which need not be direct. The LES and BUS of each sub-ELAN presents themselves as proxy-LECs of the other sub-ELANs to which they are connected. The ELAN can include a LAN Emulation Configuration Server (LECS) for downloading the connection topology and forwarding rules to all the sub-ELANs. The topology and rules are downloaded each time the ELAN is configured, e.g., initially and when the network topology changes due to failures of servers or addition and deletion of servers.
摘要:
In one embodiment of the invention, an apparatus is provided for establishing a communication session between first and second terminals in communication over a plurality of networks that employ differing transmission standards. The plurality of networks are selected from among a circuit switched network (e.g., a telephony network), a connectionless packet switched network (e.g., the Internet) and a connection-oriented packet switched network (e.g., an ATM or frame relay network). The apparatus includes a call set-up translator for translating among call set-up protocols associated with the circuit switched network, the connectionless packet switched network and the connection-oriented packet switched network. An encoding format translator is provided for translating among encoding protocols associated with the circuit switched network, the connectionless packet switched network and the connection-oriented packet switched network. Also provided is an address database for storing a plurality of addresses in different formats for each registered terminal, which includes the first and second terminals. The apparatus also includes a session manager for storing control information relating to the first and second terminals. The control information includes an identification of the first and second terminals that participate in the communication session.
摘要:
An internetwork relay system and method for transmitting IP traffic including an edge and a core. The edge includes an ingress and egress routers and the core includes a switch network. The ingress router communicates with and receives an IP packet from a source network. The ingress router attaches to each IP packet, a globally unique label which is used to forward the IP packet across the network. The relay switch network communicates with the ingress router, receives the IP packet from the ingress router and forwards the IP packet along its transmission path based on destination information included in its attached label. The egress router receives the IP packet from the switch network and forwards it to a destination network. Once received, the destination network forwards the IP packet to its intended destination.
摘要:
A temporary multimedia ELAN is formed on top of one or more existing ELANs between those end-stations (121-1, 121-2, 111-1) participating in a multimedia session, such as a video conference, at the time of initiating the session. At the end of the session the temporary ELAN is torn down. When the temporary ELAN is created an available LAN Emulation Server (LES) (241) and an available Broadcast and Unknown Server (BUS) (243) are allocated to serve those end-stations participating in the multimedia session. The BUS also serves as a multicast server to multicast a multimedia stream from one end-station to each other end-station on the temporary ELAN. The initiator of a session accesses a Multimedia Session Manager (401), which oversees and manages the session and coordinates the necessary resources. An ELAN Configuration (402) serves to dynamically assign IP addresses to end-stations to ensure that each end-station on the temporary ELAN is on a single subnet, to receive the configuration attributes of each end-station that is to be connected on the temporary ELAN, to find an available LES and BUS to serve the temporary multimedia ELAN, and to coordinate establishment of the temporary ELAN between the end-stations. Once the temporary ELAN has been formed, a Conference Configurator (403) starts executing a multimedia application already existing on each end-station or sends the executables of the selected multimedia application in real time to each end-station. During the session the Multimedia Session Manager is used to add a new end-station, drop an end-station, and terminate the session.
摘要:
Communication, for example, via the internet protocol (IP), is facilitated among ATM-attached, LAN-attached and telephone-network-attached hosts, by a so-called "RouTel" and an address server. The RouTel provides gateway capabilities for connecting a) the telephone network, e.g., via 1) integrated services digital network basic rate interface (ISDN BRI), 2) ISDN primary rate interface (ISDN PRI), or 3) modem interfaces, and b) an ATM network, via one or more ATM interfaces. Optionally, the RouTel provides interfaces for directly attaching legacy LANs, e.g., Ethernet, FDDI, and Token Ring. More particularly, the RouTel can perform IP packet forwarding between 1) a telephone-network-attached host and an ATM-attached host; 2) two telephone-network-attached hosts; and 3) a telephone-network-attached host and a legacy LAN-attached host.
摘要:
A method and a system for forwarding multicast data packets across a plurality of telecommunications subnets interconnected by routers in which a data packet is received within a subnet of the plurality of telecommunications subnets. When the data packet is a multicast data packet, a multicast IP address for the multicast data packet is determined. A multicast forwarding database is accessed for determining a LAN Emulation Client associated with the multicast IP address, and a Broadcast Unknown Server associated with the multicast IP address for the multicast data packet is determined. The multicast data packet is sent to the Broadcast Unknown Server associated with the multicast IP address for the multicast data packet through the LAN Emulation Client using a point-to-point connection. The Broadcast Unknown Server sends the multicast data packet inter-subnet to each router associated with the multicast IP address for the multicast data packet using a point-to-multipoint connection, with at least one multicast host being connected to a subnet that is different from the subnet in which the multicast data packet was received.
摘要:
A so-called "ELAN contronect network" is employed to interconnect sub-ELANs to form an ELAN. More specifically, the "ELAN contronect network" is a separate network for interconnecting the servers of the sub-ELANs, where a sub-ELAN is a part of an ELAN having its own LES and BUS that may also be configured as a stand-alone ELAN. Each of the sub-ELANs is connected to the ELAN contronect network via a point-to-point connection-oriented connection, e.g., an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) connection and the ELAN contronect network is configured to present itself to each of the servers of the sub-ELANs as clients thereof. In a particular embodiment of the invention, the ELAN contronect network includes an address server, a broadcast/route server, a configuration server, multimedia servers, and at least one LAN hub interconnected over a high-speed backbone. The address server contains an address data base for performing address resolution between the at least two addresses of each ELAN end-point in response to requests for such translations. The broadcast/route server receives data packets for broadcast to a different sub-ELAN from which the packets originated and broadcasts the received data packets to at least one other sub-ELAN. The broadcast/route server also recognizes that a packet which is a broadcast packet at layer 2 is actually a request for an address resolution at layer 3. If so, the broadcast/route server collaborates with the address server to perform the necessary address resolution and insures that a response is sent only to the client originating the request.
摘要:
In one embodiment of the invention, an apparatus is provided for establishing a communication session between first and second terminals in communication over a plurality of networks that employ differing transmission standards. The plurality of networks are selected from among a circuit switched network (e.g., a telephony network), a connectionless packet switched network (e.g., the Internet) and a connection-oriented packet switched network (e.g., an ATM or frame relay network). The apparatus includes a call set-up translator for translating among call set-up protocols associated with the circuit switched network, the connectionless packet switched network and the connection-oriented packet switched network. An encoding format translator is provided for translating among encoding protocols associated with the circuit switched network, the connectionless packet switched network and the connection-oriented packet switched network. Also provided is an address database for storing a plurality of addresses in different formats for each registered terminal, which includes the first and second terminals. The apparatus also includes a session manager for storing control information relating to the first and second terminals. The control information includes an identification of the first and second terminals that participate in the communication session.
摘要:
A method is disclosed for establishing communication between an originating station and a destination station over a computer network such as the Internet, for example. In accordance with the invention, at least one service attribute requested by the originating station is received over a signaling path. A communication path is then established between the originating and destination stations in conformance with the requested service attribute. The signaling path is an out-of-band signaling path with respect to the communication path.