Aggregating ports while allowing access to singleton ports

Abstract

Disclosed is a method for aggregating parallel data links connecting two end-point devices into a logical link. If one of the parallel data links is a multi-point link, then an end-point device can still access that link to route traffic to an end station on the link (that is, to a device other than the other end-point device of the logical data link). In the terminology of this disclosure, the logical aggregated link is accessed through an “aggregated port” on an end-point device, while the constituent multi-point link is accessed directly through a “singleton port.” By assigning a smaller cost to the aggregated port than to the singleton port, embodiments avoid creating routing loops. In some embodiments, the aggregation is performed at Layer 2 of the Open System Interconnection seven-layer protocol model. Then, the methods of the present invention work well with existing IEEE 802.1 bridging architectures and protocols.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.