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US 8,300,639 B2Granted
Forwarding groups of multicast flows
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorChatschik Bisdikian
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A routing element and method for forwarding multicast traffic in a network includes grouping a collection of path-related multicast information flows from a source and associating each information flow of the collection with a multicast address from a set of multicast addresses. Forwarding information is placed in routers within the network between the sources and destinations wherein the forwarding information includes a single entry in a forwarding table using an identifier, e.g., a representative address, for the collection.
Claims12
A routing element for a communications network, comprising:
- a forwarding table comprising:
- a collection of distinct lists of outgoing router interfaces used by one or more of a plurality of multicast groups transmitting through the routing element,
- grouping information employed to combine two or more of the distinct lists to concurrently provide a multicast flow to the outgoing router interfaces on the two or more of the distinct lists;
- a pass-through identifier to indicate that a multicast group is not linked to other distinct lists;
- and
- a replication element configured to map the multicast flow in accordance with the grouping information.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.