Large-scale layer 2 metropolitan area network
US7292581B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 24, 2002 |
| Grant date | Nov 6, 2007 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jul 13, 2025 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L45/76
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A system and method permits the creation of very-large metropolitan area networks (MANs) using Layer 2 (L2) switching technology. Different groups of L2 switches are logically organized into Islands. Connected to each Island are a plurality of customers sites, and an interconnect fabric couples the Islands together. The Islands cooperate to provide a Virtual Ethernet Connection (VEC) to each set of customer sites being coupled together. Customers identify their traffic that corresponds to a VEC by labeling or tagging it with a Customer-Equipment VLAN Identifier (CE-VLAN ID). Within each Island, the CE-VLAN ID specified by the customer's traffic (and hence the corresponding VEC) is mapped to a unique MAN Provider-Equipment VLAN ID (PE-VLAN ID). To prevent the formation of loops, the Islands run the Inter-MAN Control Protocol (IMCP), which represents a modified version of the Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP).
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.