METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR MANAGING MULTICAST TRAFFIC THROUGH A SWITCH

• US 20110058551A1
• Filed: 11/03/2010
• Published: 03/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Media Patents S.L.
• Original Assignee: Media Patents S.L.
• Inventors: Fernández Gutiérrez, Alvaro
• Granted Patent: US 9,031,068 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/390
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/18 for broadcast or conference , e.g. multicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/185 with management of multicast group membership
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1886 with traffic restrictions for efficiency improvement, e.g. involving subnets or subdomains
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/201 Multicast operation; Broadcast operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/351 for local area network [LAN], e.g. Ethernet switches

Abstract

A method for managing multicast traffic through a switch operating in the layer 2 of the OSI model, and routers and switches involved in the method. In one implementation a router sends to a switch a message containing identification of specific equipment which has requested specific multicast traffic, and also containing a specification of the specific traffic, and when the switch receives data carrying multicast traffic, based on the destination and origin addresses of the data, and based on the identification of the specific equipment and of the specification of the specific multicast traffic that it has received in the message, the switch deduces if the data carry the specific traffic that has been requested by the specific equipment, and decides through which of its ports it transmits the data.

Claims

1. A process implemented in a switch having a plurality of ports and situated in a data network system between equipment that request multicast packets from at least one multicast group address and one or more routers that receive the multicast packets requests, the process comprising:

receiving from the one or more routers information related to the multicast packets requests, the information comprising an identifier of the equipment requesting the multicast packets, Include type source records and/or Exclude type source records;

storing for each equipment and a multicast group address an INCLUDE type record having an include source list containing a source or set of sources and/or an EXCLUDE type record containing information about exclude source lists;

identifying to which port the equipment is connected;

receiving the requested multicast packets; and

transmitting to the equipment the requested multicast packets through the identified port based on the information of the INCLUDE type record and/or the EXCLUDE type record.

2. The process according to claim 1, wherein the switch stores the identifier of the equipment.

3. The process according to claim 2, wherein the identifier of the equipment comprises a MAC address of the equipment.

4. The process according to claim 2, wherein the identifier of the equipment comprises an IP address of the equipment.

5. The process according to claim 2, wherein the identifier of the equipment comprises a MAC address of the equipment and an IP address of the equipment.

6. The process according to claim 1, wherein the switch is configured to operate in multicast communications between routers and multicast communications between routers and hosts.

7. The process according to claim 6, wherein the multicast communications between routers is a version the PIM-SM protocol.

8. The process according to claim 6, wherein the multicast communications between routers and hosts is a version of the IGMP or MLD protocol.

9. The process according to claim 6, wherein the multicast communications between routers is a version the PIM-SM protocol and the multicast communications between routers and hosts is a version of the IGMP or MLD protocol.

10. The process according to claim 6, wherein the switch receives multicast packet requests via host to router communication messages and router to router communication messages.

11. The process according to claim 9, wherein the switch receives multicast packet requests via host to router communication messages and router to router communication messages.

12. The process according to claim 2, wherein the INCLUDE type record and the EXCLUDE type record comprise (equipment identifier, multicast group address, filter-mode type, source list).

13. The process according to claim 4, further comprising implementing in the switch the ARP protocol to associate a MAC address of the equipment to the IP address.

14. The process according to claim 1, further comprising reading the IP address and the MAC address in the data frames received in a port from the equipment and storing for that port information that associates the MAC address and the IP address with the equipment.

15. The process according to claim 1, wherein the information received from the one or more routers are in the form of messages that are encapsulated in IP datagrams addressed to one or more pre-established multicast addresses.

16. The process according to claim 15, wherein the switch initiates the storing step only upon determining that the IP datagrams are addressed to the one or more pre-established multicast addresses.