Supporting virtual private networks using a first network topology for forwarding and a subset of the first network topology or a smaller topology for signaling
First Claim
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1. Apparatus for facilitating forwarding of addressed data in a network including tunnels coupling nodes associated with a virtual private network, the apparatus comprising:
- a) a network topology discovery and distribution facility using a first topology of the virtual private network including at least some of the tunnels to flood network state information; and
b) a route determination facility using a second topology of the virtual private network including at least some of the tunnels to determine a routed path,wherein the first topology is smaller than the second topology.
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Abstract
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are supported in which customers may use popular internet gateway protocol (IGPs) without the need to convert such IGPs, running on customer devices to a single protocol, such as the border gateway protocol (BGP). Scaling problems, which might otherwise occur when multiple instances of an IGP flood link state information, are avoided by using a flooding topology which is smaller than a forwarding topology. The flooding topology may be a fully connected sub-set of the forwarding topology.
355 Citations
27 Claims
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1. Apparatus for facilitating forwarding of addressed data in a network including tunnels coupling nodes associated with a virtual private network, the apparatus comprising:
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a) a network topology discovery and distribution facility using a first topology of the virtual private network including at least some of the tunnels to flood network state information; and b) a route determination facility using a second topology of the virtual private network including at least some of the tunnels to determine a routed path, wherein the first topology is smaller than the second topology. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A machine readable non-transitory medium having stored thereon machine readable information comprising:
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a) first information for identifying a router instance of a virtual private network; b) second information for indicating whether or not the router instance identified by the first information is a hub or a spoke; c) third information for identifying a second router instance that belongs to the private network; and d) fourth information for indicating whether or not an interface with the second router instance identified by the third information is flooding or non-flooding. - View Dependent Claims (18)
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19. For use with a router having tunnels defining adjacencies between it and another router of a virtual private network, a method for discovering and distributing network topology information, the method comprising:
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a) defining, for each interface of the router, whether the interface is type flooding or type non-flooding; and b) for each interface of the router, (i) if the interface is type flooding, then flooding network state information over the interface, and (ii) if the interface is type non-flooding, then not flooding network state information over the interface, wherein, an interface is defined as type flooding if either virtual router interfaced by the interface is a hub, and an interface is defined as type non-flooding if both virtual routers interfaced by the interface are spokes. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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Specification