Stateful home agent recovery protocol (SHARP)
AssigneeSprint Communications Company L.P.
InventorJeremy Richard Breau
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and system for resilient mobile communications in a network when network elements are removed, upgraded or fail are provided. A mobile device communicates with an endpoint through foreign and home agents communicatively connected to the network. An active home agent stores communication information for the mobile node and multicasts the communication information to non-active home agents associated with the active home agent. When an active home agent is removed, upgraded or fails, the mobile device is able to maintain mobile communications with the endpoint through one or more non-active home agent. A non-active home agent having a high priority is transitioned to active status to maintain communication service between the mobile node and endpoint.
Claims20
One or more network switches having computer-useable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method to update binding information, the method comprising:
- determining whether a hello message was received from the active home agent in a Stateful Home Agent Recovery Protocol (SHARP) group;
- when the hello message is not received, determining whether a threshold is exceeded;
- when the hello message is received or the threshold is not exceeded, determining whether the home agent is a new home agent;
- when the home agent is not new, determining whether the home agent is active;
- if the home agent is active, multicasting binding information to non-active home agents in the SHARP group;
- if the home agent is not active, waiting for binding updates in non-active binding tables;
- and
- when the home agent is new or the threshold is exceeded, determining which home agent has priority to receive or provide an active binding table.
A mobile device configured to perform a method for generating a packet while connected to a foreign agent, the method comprising:
- adding a foreign agent address in at least one field of the packet;
- and
- including a Stateful Home Agent Recovery Protocol (SHARP) address in another field of the packet, wherein the SHARP address specifies the group and an active home agent of the SHARP group.
One or more non-transitory computer-storage media having computer-useable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method to update binding information, the method comprising:
- determining whether a hello message was received from the active home agent in a Stateful Home Agent Recovery Protocol (SHARP) group;
- when the hello message is not received, determining whether a threshold is exceeded;
- when the hello message is received or the threshold is not exceeded, determining whether the home agent is a new home agent;
- when the home agent is not new, determining whether the home agent is active;
- if the home agent is active, multicasting binding information to non-active home agents in the SHARP group;
- if the home agent is not active, waiting for binding updates in non-active binding tables;
- and
- when the home agent is new or the threshold is exceeded, determining which home agent has priority to receive or provide an active binding table.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.