Virtual private network (VPN) with channelized ethernet over sonet (EoS) interface and method

• US 20050053079A1
• Filed: 09/06/2003
• Published: 03/10/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 09/06/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Havala, Paul F.
• Granted Patent: US 7,366,181 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/400
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 2203/0085 Support of Ethernet
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 2203/0096 Serial Concatenation
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/1611 Synchronous digital hierarchy [SDH] or SONET H04J3/1664 takes precedence for interactions with OTN
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/1617 carrying packets or ATM cells
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4604 LAN interconnection over a backbone network, e.g. Internet, Frame Relay
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4641 Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4666 Operational details on the addition or the stripping of a tag in a frame, e.g. at a provider edge node
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/50 using label swapping, e.g. multi-protocol label switch [MPLS]

Abstract

A VPN includes a shared label switching network, a plurality of VLANs and edge routers interfacing the VLANs with the shared label switching network. The VLANs are each coupled to an edge router and communicate traffic using channelized EoS.

Claims

1. A Virtual Private Network (VPN), comprising:

a shared label switching network;

a plurality of Virtual Local Access Networks (VLANs) each coupled to an edge router of the shared label switching network, the VLANs each communicating traffic with a corresponding edge router utilizing channelized Ethernet over SONET (EoS); and

the edge routers interfacing the VLANs with the shared label switching network.

2. The VPN of claim 1, wherein the shared network comprises a Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network.

3. The VPN of claim 2, the edge routers comprising:

a transmit-side edge router operable to convert an ingress VLAN packet received from a VLAN and associated with a VPN to an MPLS packet and to send the MPLS packet to the MPLS network; and

a receive-side edge router operable to convert the MPLS packet received from the MPLS network to an egress VLAN packet and sending the egress VLAN packet to a VLAN associated with the VPN.

4. The VPN of claim 3, the edge routers each comprising a first table storing correspondence between VLAN identifiers (VIDs) contained in VLAN packets and VPN labels contained in MPLS packets.

5. The VPN of claim 4, wherein the transmit-side edge router finds a VPN label, which corresponds to a VLAN identifier (VID) of a VLAN packet, from the first table, generates an MPLS packet having the VPN label and sends the MPLS packet to the MPLS network.

6. The VPN of claim 5, wherein the receive-side edge router finds a VID, which corresponds to a VPN label contained in an MPLS packet received from the MPLS network, from the first table, generates a VLAN packet having the VID and sends the VLAN packet to a VLAN indicated by the VID.

7. The VPN network of claim 6, wherein each edge routers comprises:

a route decision unit for determining a route which directs an MPLS packet to a receive-side edge router;

a second table for storing forwarding labels, which specify routes decided by the route decision unit, mapped to addresses of receive-side edge routers; and

the transmit-side edge router finds a receive-side edge router corresponding to a destination of a packet, finds a forwarding label, which corresponds to the receive-side edge router, from the second table, generates an MPLS packet that contains the VPN label and the forwarding label and sends the MPLS packet to the MPLS network.

8. The VPN of claim 5, wherein a first edge router which constructs the VPN and is connected to a VLAN sends a second edge router an address set including an address of a VLAN-compatible device connected to the first edge router and the address of the first edge router, and each edge router creates a routing table based upon the received information.

9. The VPN of claim 8, wherein the transmit-side edge router finds a receive-side edge router, which corresponds to the destination of the packet, from said routing table.

10. The VPN of claim 3, wherein the transmit-side edge router discards a VLAN packet having a VID value that is greater than a set value.

11. The VPN of claim 3, wherein the transmit-side edge router inserts user priority information, which is contained in a tag of a VLAN packet, into a label of an MPLS packet as IP precedence information of the MPLS network, and the receive-side edge router inserts IP precedence information, which is contained in the label of an MPLS packet, into the tag of a VLAN packet as user priority information of the VLAN.

12. An edge router of a shared label switching network, comprising:

an Ethernet over SONET (EoS) line card including a SONET channelization element operable to receive from a Virtual Local Access Network (VLAN) a channelized EoS signal including a plurality of Ethernet channels and to send VLAN packets received in each of the Ethernet channels to a corresponding Ethernet interface;

one or more Virtual Private Network (VPN) units coupled to the Ethernet interfaces and operable to identify a VPN for the VLAN packets and to send the VLAN packets to a corresponding VPN subrouter based on the VPN; and

each VPN subrouter operable to convert the VLAN packets to a label switching packet for transmission over the shared label switching network in the VPN.

13. The edge router of claim 12, wherein the label switching network comprises a Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network.

14. The edge router of claim 13, wherein each VPN subrouter is operable to convert a VLAN packet to an MPLS packet for transmission over the shared MPLS network by replacing a tag of the VLAN packet with a VPN label and a forwarding label.

15. The edge router of claim 14, wherein each VPN subrouter is further operable to convert the VLAN packet to the MPLS packet for transmission over the shared MPLS network by inserting user priority information from the tag of the VLAN packet into a label of the MPLS packet.

16. A method, comprising:

receiving a SONET frame including a plurality of Ethernet channels, each Ethernet channel including ingress packets associated with one or more Virtual Private Networks (VPNs);

determining a VPN associated with each ingress packet; and

converting each ingress packet to an egress label switching packet based on the associated VPN for transmission over a shared network.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the ingress packet comprises a Virtual Local Access Network (VLAN) packet.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the egress label switching packet comprises a Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) packet.

19. A method, comprising:

receiving a channelized Ethernet over SONET (EoS) signal comprising a plurality of Ethernet channels, each Ethernet channel including a plurality of Virtual Local Access Network (VLAN) packets;

demultiplexing the Ethernet channels;

determining a Virtual Private Network (VPN) associated with each VLAN packet of each Ethernet channel; and

converting the VLAN packets for each Ethernet channel to label switching packets based on the associated VPN for transmission through a shared label switching network.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the label switching network comprises a Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network and the label switching packets comprise MPLS packets.