Patent · US Active

System and method for passively monitoring customer control messages in a multicast VPN

US7756072B1 · kind B1 · utility

17Cited by
16References
16Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 30, 2005
Grant dateJul 13, 2010
Priority date
Expiry dateJan 27, 2029

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L12/1863
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A system and method to passively monitor multicast control traffic in the provider backbone. A monitoring station is located within the service provider network. Upon creation of an MVPN session, this monitoring station joins the default multicast distribution tree (“MDT”) in the provider backbone used to handle traffic within that MVPN session, and receives the customer's multicast control traffic encapsulated in packets addressed to the default MDT. Using these two kinds of packets, the monitor learns the following information: the identity of the PE routers participating in the MVPN; the identity of the customer multicast groups that are carried on each provider multicast data tree (MDT); the identity of one or more PE routers participating in each customer group, and the identity of the MDT that it is carried on. This information is collected for each customer multicast group, both upstream and downstream at each PE router.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.