ECMP parent group selection for multidestination traffic in DCE/TRILL networks

• US 10,205,602 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2017
• Issued: 02/12/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 10/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Rajagopalan, Santosh, Kulhari, Ajay, Balasubramanian, Hariharan
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Jay P
• Application Number:
  US15/827,273
• Publication Number:
  US 20180097645A1
• Time in Patent Office: 439 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/185 with management of multicast group membership
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/245 Link aggregation, e.g. trunking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/32 Flooding denial of service attacks H04L63/1458
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/66 Layer 2 routing, e.g. in Ethernet based MAN's
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 70/30 Systems integrating technologies related to power network operation and communication or information technologies for improving the carbon footprint of the management of residential or tertiary loads, i.e. smart grids as climate change mitigation technology in the buildings sector, including also the last stages of power distribution and the control, monitoring or operating management systems at local level
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

Consistent with embodiments of the present disclosure, systems and methods are disclosed for providing per-group ECMP for multidestination traffic in a DCE/TRILL network. Embodiments enable per-group load balancing of multidestination traffic in DCE/L2MP networks by creating a new IS-IS PDU to convey the affinity of the parent node for a given multicast group. For broadcast and unknown unicast flooded traffic, the load balancing may be done on a per-vlan basis.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a memory storage; and

a processing unit coupled to the memory storage, wherein the processing unit is operative to;

obtain a unicast Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) Routing graph;

perform load balancing based on a hash packet associated with the unicast ECMP graph;

select a unicast path based on load balancing; and

determine per-group based on the unicast ECMP graph which of a plurality of parent switches can send traffic directed to each group such that a single parent switch exists for each source switch.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further operative to add an outgoing interface to a tree associated with the determined parent switch.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processor is further operative to add a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) extension to an Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) protocol.

4. A method comprising:

obtaining a unicast Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) Routing graph;

performing load balancing based on a hash packet associated with the unicast ECMP graph;

selecting a unicast path based on load balancing; and

determining per-group based on the unicast ECMP graph which of a plurality of parent switches can send traffic directed to each group such that a single parent switch exists for each source switch.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising adding an outgoing interface to a tree associated with the determined parent switch.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising adding a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) extension to an Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) protocol.

7. A computer-readable medium that stores a set of instructions which when executed perform a method comprising:

obtaining a unicast Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) Routing graph;

performing load balancing based on a hash packet associated with the unicast ECMP graph;

selecting a unicast path based on load balancing; and

determining per-group based on the unicast ECMP graph which of a plurality of parent switches can send traffic directed to each group such that a single parent switch exists for each source switch.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, further comprising adding an outgoing interface to a tree associated with the determined parent switch.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8, further comprising adding a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) extension to an Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) protocol.