System and method for communicating on a virtual ring in an internet protocol network

A computer network comprising:

• at least two nodes having a transport layer protocol to provide end to end data transfer to multicast datagrams in a virtual ring, each datagram including a virtual ring identifier, a source address of a sending node, a destination address of a next node on the ring, a source port, a destination port, and an identifier for a node originator of the datagram;
• each node on said virtual ring being logically connected to an upstream neighbor node and a downstream neighbor node through virtual connection;
• and
• instructions for multicasting datagrams on said virtual ring comprising:
• sending a datagram to the downstream neighbor node on the virtual ring;
• identifying the received datagram upon receipt of the datagram;
• determining if the received datagram is a token generated by a virtual ring manager, wherein the token comprises a sequence number incremented each time the token is received by the virtual ring manager node, responsible for validating and modifying a virtual ring topology and forwarding the token to the downstream neighbor node on the identified virtual ring if the token is valid;
• determining if the received datagram is a virtual ring datagram containing data other than a token;
• forwarding said virtual ring datagram to the downstream neighbor node on the identified virtual ring if the received virtual ring datagram has not been locally originated;
• and
• removing the virtual ring datagram from the virtual ring if the received virtual ring datagram has been locally originated.

An article comprising:

• a computer network comprising at least two nodes having a transport layer protocol to provide end to end data transfer to multicast datagrams in a virtual ring;
• each node on said virtual ring being logically connected to an upstream neighbor node and a downstream neighbor node through virtual connection;
• a non-transitory computer readable medium in said network;
• instructions in said medium for multicasting datagrams on said virtual ring comprising:
• instructions for sending a datagram to the downstream neighbor node on the virtual ring;
• instructions for identifying the received datagram upon receipt of the datagram;
• instructions for determining if the received datagram is a token generated by a virtual ring manager responsible for validating and modifying a virtual ring topology, and forwarding the token to the downstream neighbor node on the identified virtual ring if the token is valid, said token being a datagram including a token identifier and a token sequence number, a source address of a sending node, a source port, a destination port, and a destination address of a next node on the ring, and means for identifying the virtual ring, wherein the sequence number is incremented each time the token is received by the virtual ring manager node;
• instructions for determining if the received datagram is a virtual ring datagram containing data other than a token;
• instructions for forwarding said virtual ring datagram to the downstream neighbor node on the identified virtual ring if the received virtual ring diagram has not been local originated;
• and
• instructions for removing the virtual ring datagram from the virtual ring if the received virtual ring datagram has been locally originated.

A method to use in a node within a network comprising a transport layer protocol providing end to end data transfer, for multicasting datagrams on a virtual ring, each node on the virtual ring being logically connected according to the network transport layer protocol to an upstream neighbor node and a downstream neighbor node through virtual connections, comprising;

• sending a datagram to the downstream neighbor node on the virtual ring;
• said datagram comprising:
• a virtual ring identifier;
• means for identifying the node originator of the datagram;
• a destination address of a next node on the ring;
• and
• data;
• identifying the received datagram upon receipt of the datagram;
• determining if the received datagram is a token generated by a virtual ring manager responsible for validating and modifying a ring topology, comprising:
• identifying the virtual ring;
• checking whether the token is valid;
• and
• forwarding the token to the downstream neighbor node on the identified virtual ring if the token is valid, said token being a datagram including a token identifier and a token sequence number;
• determining if the received datagram is a virtual ring datagram containing data other than a token, comprising:
• identifying the virtual ring;
• checking the node originator of the received virtual ring datagram;
• determining if the received virtual ring datagram has not been locally originated, comprising:
• processing data comprised in said virtual ring datagram and forwarding said virtual ring datagram to the downstream neighbor node on the identified virtual ring;
• and determining if the received virtual ring datagram has been locally originated, comprising:
• removing the virtual ring datagram from the virtual ring.