In general, techniques are described that facilitate application of service within MPLS networks. More specifically, a router comprises a forwarding plane, a service plane and a routing engine. The routing engine maintains data defining an association between a handle identifying a property common to a plurality of packets of a particular context and one or more MPLS labels associated with these packets. The routing engine automatically generates and installs a filter to identify these packets within both the forwarding and service planes. The forwarding plane applies the filter to incoming packets to determine whether each of the incoming packets includes a label matching any of the labels of the filter and forwards the incoming packets to the service plane upon a match. The service card selects one or more services identified by the filter and applies the selected one or more services to the incoming packet.

Applying services within MPLS networks

An apparatus comprising a service network and a plurality of Layer 2 networks at a plurality of different physical locations coupled to the service network via a plurality of edge nodes at the Layer 2 networks, wherein the edge nodes are configured to maintain a plurality of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of a plurality of hosts across the Layer 2 networks, and wherein the IP addresses of the hosts in each of the Layer 2 networks are mapped by the other Layer 2 networks to a Media Access Control (MAC) address of each of the edge nodes in the same Layer 2 networks of the hosts.

Virtual Layer 2 and Mechanism to Make it Scalable

A network component comprising a receiver configured to receive an outgoing frame from a local host, a logic circuit configured to map a destination address (DA) for a target host in the outgoing frame to a DA for a target location of the target host and encapsulate the outgoing frame using the DA for the target location, and a transmitter configured to receive a pre-encapsulated outgoing frame from a local switch, and send the pre-encapsulated outgoing frame to a gateway at a target location, wherein the transmitter does not encapsulate frames received from local switches and decapsulates an incoming frame from a remote gateway destined towards local hosts.

Asymmetric network address encapsulation

In an MPLS network, multicast, broadcast and address learning belonging to the layer 2 functions are realized. An ingress router comprises a frame receiving unit, a determining unit, a first frame transmitting unit, a physical address table for multicast, a label switching unit, a tunnel label table, a VCID giving unit, a L2 header creating unit and a second frame transmitting unit. The load on the network is suppressed, the band is efficiently used, and wasteful frame duplication and frame forwarding between edge routers are avoided.

Router, frame forwarding method, and lower layer frame virtual forwarding system

A data center network system and a packet forwarding method are provided. The data center network includes a management server and a plurality of machines containing physical machines and virtual machines. The management server configures a logical media access control (MAC) address for each of the machines, wherein most significant bytes of each of the logical MAC addresses are set as 0. When a data packet is about to be sent from a physical machine, the physical machine executes an encapsulation procedure on the data packet for forwarding the data packet to an intermediate node between a transmitter and a receiver of the data packet, and the intermediate node executes a decapsulation procedure on the data packet for forwarding the data packet to the true receiver. Accordingly, the number of virtual machines exposed to the forwarding table of Ethernet switches can be effectively reduced.

Data center network system and packet forwarding method thereof

The present disclosure is generally directed to systems and methods associated with data communications. In a particular embodiment, a method for use of multi-protocol labels switching (MPLS) encapsulation with control word communicated over a distributed computer network is disclosed. The method includes providing MPLS virtual circuit label with the control word associated with a data packet selected from one of a customer data packet and an OAM data packet, and communicating the MPLS packet with control word and the data packet over the distributed computer network. In another embodiment, a method of handling a data packet within a computer network is disclosed. The data packet is either an unknown unicast, multicast, or broadcast packet. The method includes encapsulating the packet into a multi-packet label switching label and a control word, the control word having a source site identity and a multi-cast identity; and distributing the packet to a plurality of sites within the computer network.

Enhanced H-VPLS service architecture using control word

A method of encapsulating data packets for use in a distributed computer network is disclosed. The method includes providing a data packet for transmission over the distributed computer network, the data packet selected from one of a customer data packet and an OAM data packet; and encapsulating the data packet with a medium access control outer packet. The disclosed data packet handling method includes receiving a data packet from a customer facing data port, the customer facing data port within a network node of a computer network; performing medium access control (MAC) learning for the received packet; determining whether the data port is a MAC-in-MAC port; performing a packet mapping to a destination address based on a service provider destination address; and encapsulating the received data packet with a header associated with the service provider.

Ethernet architecture with data packet encapsulation

The present disclosure is directed to operations, administration, and maintenance related systems and methods associated with data communications. In a particular embodiment, an encapsulated operations, administration and maintenance (OAM) data packet for use in connection with a service provider network is disclosed. The encapsulated OAM data packet includes a service provider destination address and a service provider source address. The service provider destination address is associated with a destination node within the service provider network; and the service provider source address is associated with a source node within the service provider network.

Cheng-Hong Hu

Papers

Enhanced H-VPLS service architecture using control word

Ethernet architecture with data packet encapsulation

Operations, administration, and maintenance data packet and related testing methods