# US 2014/0153382 A1 · Method and apparatus for implementing control of multiple physically dual homed devices

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- Number: US 2014/0153382 A1
- Document ID: US20140153382A1
- Status: Published application
- Kind: A1
- Application number: 14/176,223
- Filed: 2014-02-10
- Published: 2014-06-05
- Earliest claimed: 2009-06-18
- Assignees: Rockstar Consortium US LP
- Applicants: Rockstar Consortium US LP
- Inventors: David Allan; Peter Ashwood-Smith
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20140153382A1

## CPC

- H04L 12/437: Ring fault isolation or reconfiguration {(for SDH/SONET ring networks H04J3/085)}
- H04L 41/0661: {by reconfiguring faulty entities}
- H04L 41/0668: by dynamic selection of recovery network elements, e.g. replacement by the most appropriate element after failure
- H04L 45/28: using route fault recovery
- H04L 45/66: {Layer 2 routing, e.g. in Ethernet based MAN's}
- H04L 49/351: for local area network [LAN], e.g. Ethernet switches
- H04L 49/70: {Virtual switches}
- A61K 31/337: having four-membered rings, e.g. taxol
- A61K 33/00: Medicinal preparations containing inorganic active ingredients
- A61K 47/12: Carboxylic acids; Salts or anhydrides thereof
- H04L: TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION (arrangements common to telegraphic and telephonic communication H04M)
- A61K: PREPARATIONS FOR MEDICAL, DENTAL OR TOILETRY PURPOSES (devices or methods specially adapted for bringing pharmaceutical products into particular physical or administering forms A61J3/00; chemical aspects of, or use of materials for deodorisation of air, for disinfection or sterilisation, or for bandages, dressings, absorbent pads or surgical articles A61L; soap compositions C11D)

## Abstract

A ring control protocol is used to establish a separate control plane for a plurality of physically dual homed devices to enable collections of dual homed devices to be represented by a single pair of addresses into the attached routed Ethernet network. The gateway devices analyze the passing ring control packets to create direct mappings for data packets to the routed Ethernet network. Thus, although the dual homed devices are treated as a ring from a control perspective, the data path is implemented to be direct so that data packets continue to flow directly from the dual homed devices to each of the attached gateway devices. In one embodiment, each of the gateway devices implements a virtual switch and advertises the MAC address of the virtual switch into the routed Ethernet network rather than the MAC addresses of each of the attached Ethernet Switch Units.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A data center comprising:
a pair of gateways configured as network elements of a routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network;
an inter-gateway trunk connecting the pair of gateways; and
a plurality of Ethernet Switch Units (ESUs) dual-homed on the pair of gateways, each ESU of the plurality of ESUs having a respective Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) address;
wherein the pair of gateways and at least two ESUs of the plurality of ESUs are configured to implement a control plane logical ring linking the plurality of ESUs to the pair of gateways in which a first gateway of the pair of gateways is configured:
to associate a common Ethernet MAC address with the at least two ESUs; and
to represent the at least two ESUs into the routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network using the common Ethernet MAC address instead of the Ethernet MAC addresses of the ESUs.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The data center of claim 1, wherein:
the plurality of ESUs comprises the at least two ESUs and at least one other ESU linked to the pair of gateways by the control plane logical ring; and
a second gateway of the pair of gateways is configured to represent the at least one other ESU into the routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network at the other of the gateways using a respective address associated with the at least one other ESU.

### Claim 3 (depends on 1)

The data center of claim 1, wherein:
the plurality of ESUs and the pair of gateways are configured to implement plural control plane logical rings, each control plane logical ring linking a respective group of ESUs to the pair of gateways, each group of ESUs comprising at least one ESU; and
a respective one of the gateways is configured to represent each ESU linked to the pair of gateways via a respective one of the control plane logical rings into the routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network.

### Claim 4 (depends on 3)

The data center of claim 3, wherein ESUs requiring a common recovery behavior under failure are grouped together into one of the control plane logical rings.

### Claim 5 (depends on 3)

The data center of claim 3, wherein ESUs requiring a common recovery behavior under failure are represented into the routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network using a common Ethernet MAC address.

### Claim 6 (depends on 3)

The data center of claim 3, wherein a respective one of the gateways is configured to represent each ESU linked to the pair of gateways via a respective one of the control plane logical rings into the routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network at a respective one of the gateways by representing some of the ESUs at one gateway and representing others of the ESUs at the other gateway.

### Claim 7 (depends on 1)

The data center of claim 1, wherein the first gateway is configured to represent each ESU of the at least two ES Us into the routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network at one of the gateways using the common Ethernet MAC address by advertising the common Ethernet MAC address into the routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network such that data traffic can be directed over the routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network to each ESU of the at least two ESUs using the common Ethernet MAC address.

### Claim 8 (depends on 1)

The data center of claim 1 wherein each ESU is configured with a direct data path to the pair of gateways such that data traffic does not follow the control plane logical ring.

### Claim 9 (depends on 1)

The data center of claim 1, wherein the plurality of ESUs and the pair of gateways are configured to operate the control plane logical ring according to the Ethernet shared protection rings (E-SPRING) protocol.

### Claim 10 (depends on 1)

The data center of claim 1, wherein at least one virtual switch is configured at each gateway to summarize routes from ESUs homed on that gateway.

### Claim 11 (depends on 10)

The data center of claim 10, wherein at least one ESU is configured to forward traffic to virtual switches on each gateway of the pair of gateways.

### Claim 12 (depends on 10)

The data center of claim 10, wherein the at least one virtual switch is configured to encapsulate data traffic passing onto the routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network from an ESU with the Ethernet MAC address which is associated with the ESU by the virtual switch.

### Claim 13 (depends on 10)

The data center of claim 10, wherein the at least one virtual switch is configured to decapsulate data traffic passing from the routing-protocol-controller Ethernet network to an ESU to remove a routing-protocol-controlled Ethernet network MAC address.

### Claim 14 (depends on 1)

The data center of claim 1, wherein for each control plane logical ring linking an odd number of ESUs to the pair of gateways, the pair of gateways is configured to use the inter-gateway trunk to complete the control plane logical ring.

### Claim 15 (depends on 1)

The data center of claim 1, wherein the plurality of ESUs and the pair of gateways are configured:
to forward control plane traffic from a first ESU in the control plane logical ring to the first gateway of the pair of gateways;
to forward the control plane traffic from the first gateway to a second ESL in the control plane logical ring; and
to forward the control plane traffic from the second ESU to a second gateway of the pair of gateways.

### Claim 16 (depends on 15)

The data center of claim 15, wherein the second gateway is configured to forward the control plane traffic from the second gateway to the first gateway via the inter-gateway trunk.

### Claim 17 (depends on 15)

The data center of claim 15, wherein the second gateways is configured to forward the control plane traffic from the second gateway to a third ESU in the control plane logical ring.

### Claim 18 (depends on 1)

The data center of claim 1, wherein at least one ESU is configured to forward traffic in a plurality of virtual local area networks associated with respective customers.