Loading patent…
OwnerMan H. Hui, Radhakrishna S. Valiveti +3inventors
InventorsMan H. Hui, Radhakrishna S. Valiveti, Haroon Patel, James A. Lamont, Yogesh B. Shah
Estimating the term…
A Local Area Network (LAN) is a digital communications network interconnecting serial local computer workstations. The invention provides a technique for interconnecting two or more remote LAN's. In a specific embodiment the LAN's are IBM Token Rings in which case the notion of a virtual or pseudo ring is conceived to represent the network between the remote Token Rings. Each Token Ring is connected to the network by a respective half-bridge. Each half-bridge enters a number representing the pseudo ring in the Routing Information field of the frames it forwards over the network to a remote half-bridge. The frames are preferably multiplexed by encapsulating them in a LAPD-compatible frame having a header containing an identifier which identifies the half-bridge for which the frame is destined.
A communication system for sending data link frames between mutually remotely located token rings via a communication network, comprising respective bridge means connecting each token ring to the network, each bridge means comprising means for inserting source routing information in the frames to specify the order in which the frames are to be routed through the token rings, the bridge means and the network, the source routing information including bridge numbers unique to the respective bridge means, ring numbers unique to the respective token rings and a virtual ring number identifying the network.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.