Identify negotiation switch protocols

Abstract

A switch to switch protocol for network load balancing which negotiates among switches operable in accordance with the invention to assign a unique loop bit offset identifier value to each switch. Various other load balancing protocols associated with the switches then utilize the loop bit offset value as an identifier field when determining loops in the network of switches and costs associated with non-looped paths in the switches. A loop bit offset identifier requires less switch processing overhead than techniques which utilize an entire address value (i.e., MAC address value) for such protocols. Further, the loop bit offset identifier assigned by the present invention reduces the size of load balancing related packets. Specifically, cost computation related packets are reduced in size to the minimum 64 byte packet size through use of the loop bit offset identifier value of the present invention.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.