Method and apparatus for maintaining port state tables in a forwarding plane of a network element
AssigneeAvaya Inc.
InventorHamid Assarpour
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method, apparatus and computer program product for maintaining port state tables in a forwarding plane of a network element are presented. The state of a first set of ports associated with a first Forwarding Data Unit (FDU) are periodically determined, the first FDU being one of a plurality of FDUs. The determined state is used to update a first port state table of the port state database associated with the first FDU. The determined state is transmitted to each other FDUs on the network element to enable each of the other FDUs to store the state of the first set of ports in a port state database local to each of the other FDUs. The port state database is used by the forwarding plane to perform fast reroute of packets.
Claims20
A method of maintaining a port state database in a forwarding plane of a network element, the method comprising the steps of:
- periodically determining, by the network element, a state of a first set of ports associated with a first Forwarding Data Unit (FDU), the first FDU being one of a plurality of FDUs implementing forwarding functions within the forwarding plane of the network element;
- using, by the network element, the determined state to update a first port state table of the port state database associated with the first FDU;
- and
- transmitting the determined state to each other FDUs on the network element to enable each of said other FDUs to store the state of the first set of ports in a port state database local to each of said other FDUs.
A network element comprising:
- a memory;
- a processor;
- a communications interface;
- an interconnection mechanism coupling the memory, the processor and the communications interface;
- and
- wherein the memory is encoded with an application maintaining a port state database, that when performed on the processor, provides a process for processing information, the process causing the network element to perform the operations of:
- periodically determining a state of a first set of ports associated with a first Forwarding Data Unit (FDU), the first FDU being one of a plurality of FDUs implementing forwarding functions within the forwarding plane of the network element;
- using the determined state to update a first port state table of the port state database associated with the first FDU;
- and
- transmitting the determined state to each other FDUs on the network element to enable each of said other FDUs to store the state of the first set of ports in a port state database local to each of said other FDUs.
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable code thereon for maintaining a port state database, the medium including instructions in which a computer system performs operations comprising:
- periodically determining a state of a first set of ports associated with a first Forwarding Data Unit (FDU), the first FDU being one of a plurality of FDUs implementing forwarding functions within the forwarding plane of the network element;
- using the determined state to update a first port state table of the port state database associated with the first FDU;
- and
- transmitting the determined state to each other FDUs on the network element to enable each of said other FDUs to store the state of the first set of ports in a port state database local to each of said other FDUs.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.