Fast flooding based fast convergence to recover from network failures

A router to participate in fast flooding based fast convergence to recover from a network failure, the router comprising:

• an application layer entity including a routing protocol module configured to manage a routing table;
• and
• a data transport layer entity including:
• a plurality of interfaces to couple the router with a plurality of other routers,
• a bridge MAC (Media Access Control) table to store associations of MAC addresses and interfaces, and
• a Fast Failure Notification (FFN) module that is configured to, in response to receipt at one of the plurality of interfaces a first fast failure notification message that includes information that identifies a network failure, perform the following:
• responsive to a determination that a source MAC (Media Access Control) address of the first fast failure notification message is associated with the interface in which the first fast failure notification message was received on, associate the source MAC address and interface to the bridge MAC table, flood the first fast failure notification message to one or more other ones of the plurality of interfaces of the router, and send the first fast failure notification message to the routing protocol module to update the routing table to reflect the network failure,
• wherein the FFN module is to flood the first fast failure notification message to the one or more other ones of the plurality of interfaces prior to the routing protocol module completing its update of the routing table to reflect the network failure.

A method in a router for participating in fast flooding based fast convergence to recover from a network failure, wherein the router is one of a plurality of routers in a network, the method comprising the steps of:

• electing one of the plurality of routers in the network to be a root node;
• constructing a shortest path first tree rooted at the root node based on current network topology;
• joining a multicast group;
• receiving, on an interface of the router, a fast failure notification message that includes information that identifies a network failure, wherein the first fast failure notification message is addressed to an address associated with the multicast group;
• multicasting the fast failure notification message according to the shortest path first tree, wherein the fast failure notification message is multicasted to one or more interfaces on the shortest path first tree excluding the receiving interface;
• updating a routing table of the router to reflect the network failure;
• wherein the step of multicasting the fast failure notification message according to the shortest path first tree is performed prior to completion of the step of updating the routing table to reflect the network failure.

A router to participate in fast flooding based fast convergence to recover from a network failure, the router comprising:

• an application layer entity including a routing protocol module configured to manage a routing table;
• and
• a data transport layer entity including:
• a plurality of interfaces to couple the router with a plurality of other routers,
• a shortest path first tree rooted at one of the plurality of routers,
• a Fast Failure Notification (FFN) module that is configured to, in response to receipt at one of the plurality of interfaces a fast failure notification message that includes information that identifies a network failure, perform the following:
• multicast the fast failure notification message according to the shortest path first tree, wherein the fast failure notification message is multicasted to one or more interfaces on the shortest path first tree excluding the receiving interface, and
• send the fast failure notification message to the routing protocol module to update the routing table to reflect the network failure;
• wherein the FFN module is to multicast the fast failure notification message prior to the routing protocol module completing its update of the routing table to reflect the network failure.

A method in a router for participating in fast flooding based fast convergence to recover from a network failure, the method comprising the steps of:

• building a bidirectional multicast tree using a PIM (Protocol Independent Multicast) protocol implementation;
• joining a multicast group;
• receiving, on an interface of the router, a fast failure notification message that includes information that identifies a network failure, wherein the first fast failure notification message is addressed to an address associated with the multicast group;
• multicasting the fast failure notification message according to the bidirectional multicast tree, wherein the fast failure notification message is multicasted to one or more interfaces on the bidirectional multicast tree excluding the receiving interface;
• and
• updating a routing table of the router to reflect the network failure;
• wherein the step of multicasting the fast failure notification message according to the bidirectional multicast tree is performed prior to completion of the step of updating the routing table to reflect the network failure.

A router to participate in fast flooding based fast convergence to recover from a network failure, the router comprising:

• an application layer entity including a routing protocol module configured to manage a routing table;
• and
• a data transport layer entity including:
• a plurality of interfaces to couple the router with a plurality of other routers,
• a bidirectional multicast tree built using a PIM (Protocol Independent Multicast) protocol implementation,
• a Fast Failure Notification (FFN) module that is configured to, in response to receipt at one of the plurality of interfaces a fast failure notification message that includes information that identifies a network failure, perform the following:
• multicast the fast failure notification message according to the bidirectional multicast tree, wherein the fast failure notification message is multicasted to one or more interfaces on the bidirectional multicast tree excluding the receiving interface, and
• send the fast failure notification message to the routing protocol module to update the routing table to reflect the network failure;
• wherein the FFN module is to multicast the fast failure notification message prior to the routing protocol module completing its update of the routing table to reflect the network failure.