US 9,755,949 B2Granted

Network failover and loop detection in hierarchical networks

AssigneeVerizon Digital Media Services Inc.

InventorsAmir Reza Khakpour, Robert J. Peters, Derek Shiell

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Abstract

Some embodiments provide loop detection and loop prevention mechanisms for messaging passing in between peers in a multi-tier hierarchy. In some embodiments, the messaging header is modified to track which peers have received a copy of the message. Each peer appends its identifier to the message header before passing the message to another peer. When selecting a receiving peer, the sending peer ensures that the receiving peer is not already identified in the message header. If the receiving peer has already received the message, then another peer from a next-peer list is selected to receive the message. If all peers in the next-peer have been traversed, the sending peer returns an error message via a reverse traversal of the peers in the message header.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method for loop prevention in a multi-tiered hierarchy, wherein the hierarchy comprises a plurality of tiers with each tier of the plurality of tiers comprising one or more peers, the method comprising:

sending a message from a first peer operating in a first tier of the plurality of tiers to a second peer operating in a second lower tier of the plurality of tiers;
detecting a failure in said sending at the first peer;
failing over from the first peer to a third peer operating in the first tier by sending said message with a first identifier identifying the first peer in the message header from the first peer to the third peer;
sending said message from the third peer to the second peer;
detecting a failure in said sending at the third peer;
selecting at the third peer, a next peer from a list of next peers configured to the third peer;
failing over from the third peer to the next peer operating in the first tier when the next peer is not identified by the first identifier in the message header;
and
preventing failover from the third peer to the next peer when the next peer is identified by the first identifier in the message header.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 14/860,287Filed 21 Sep 2015
Published: US 2017/0085464 A123 Mar 2017
Granted: 5 Sep 2017
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification4 codes

H04L 45/18
Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks: loop-free operations
H04L 45/28
Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks: using route fault recovery
H04L 49/557
Prevention, detection or correction of errors: error correction, e.g. fault recovery or fault tolerance
H04L
Digital communication