Granted Patent B2

US 9,755,845 · App. 14/550,237 · Granted Sep 5, 2017

Abstract

Claims (37)

1. A computer-implemented method in which a Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) network having an ingress Backbone Edge Bridge (BEB), configured with a Layer 2 Virtual Services Network (L2VSN) enabled, and at least one egress BEB coupled to at least one Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) network, the at least one egress BEB configured with the L2VSN enabled, comprising:

snooping, by said egress BEB, PIM join and prune messages for a multicast stream in the L2VSN in said SPB network;

building a multicast tree in said SPB network for said multicast stream in accordance with said PIM join and prune messages; and

forwarding, by the ingress BEB, said multicast steam through the L2VSN in said SPB network in accordance with said multicast tree.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said egress BEB includes a PIM-Snooping module and wherein said PIM join and prune messages are copied to said PIM-Snooping module in said egress BEB.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein said PIM-Snooping module maintains a list of active receiver ports for said multicast stream based on said PIM join and prune messages.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein said egress BEB that has active receiver ports for a multicast stream will join all Data I-SID trees representing the multicast stream by sending the ISIS TLVs used to join an I-SID in said SPB network.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein when an update of active receiver ports on said BEB results in a last active receiver port to be removed, said egress BEB withdraws its receive interest in the Data I-SID for said multicast tree resulting in the pruning of said multicast tree within said SPB network.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein when said ingress BEB receives the multicast stream on a UNI of the L2VSN enabled for PIM snooping, said ingress BEB dynamically allocates an I-SID for said multicast stream and advertises a corresponding (S, G, Service Instance) to Dynamic I-SID mapping to a rest of said SPB Network using existing ISIS TLVs.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein said ingress BEB checks for activity on said multicast stream and when said multicast stream has been inactive for a duration longer than an allowed aging time, said ingress BEB withdraws said advertisement for a Data I-SID that said ingress BEB allocated for said multicast stream.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein required multicast trees are built for multicast traffic for a stream to flow through the L2VSN from said ingress BEB of said SPB network to said at least one Egress BEB of said SPB network that has active receiver ports for said multicast stream.

9. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable code thereon for Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) snooping for a Short Path Bridge (SPB) network that includes an ingress Backbone Edge Bridge (BEB), configured with a Layer 2 Virtual Services Network (L2VSN) enabled, and at least one egress BEB coupled to at least one Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) network, the at least one egress BEB configured with the L2VSN enabled, the medium including instructions in which a computer system performs operations comprising:

snooping, by said egress BEB, PIM join and prune messages for a multicast stream in the L2VSN in said SPB network;

building a multicast tree in said SPB network for said multicast stream in accordance with said PIM join and prune messages; and

forwarding, by the ingress BED, said multicast steam through the L2VSN in said SPB network in accordance with said multicast tree.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein said egress BEB includes a PIM-Snooping module and wherein said PIM join and prune messages are copied to said PIM-Snooping module in said egress BEB.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein said PIM Snooping module maintains a list of active receiver ports for each multicast stream based on said PIM join and prune messages.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11 wherein said egress BEB that has active receiver ports for said multicast stream will join all Data I-SID trees representing the multicast stream by sending the ISIS TLVs used to join an I-SID in said SPB network.

13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 12 wherein when an update of active receiver ports on said Egress BEB results in a last active receiver port to be removed, said egress BEB withdraws its receive interest in the Data I-SID for said multicast tree resulting in the pruning of said multicast tree within said SPB network.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein when said ingress BEB receives the multicast stream on a UNI of the L2VSN enabled for PIM snooping, said ingress BEB dynamically allocates a Data I-SID for said multicast stream and advertises a corresponding (S, G, Service Instance) to Dynamic I-SID mapping to a rest of said SPB Network using existing ISIS TLVs.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 14 wherein said ingress BEB checks for activity on said multicast stream and when said multicast stream has been inactive for a duration longer than an allowed aging time, said ingress BEB withdraws said advertisement for a Data I-SID that said ingress BEB allocated for said multicast stream.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein required multicast trees are built for multicast traffic for said multicast stream to flow through the L2VSN from said ingress BEB of said SPB network to said at least one BEB of said SPB network that has active receiver ports for said multicast stream.

17. A computer system comprising:

an ingress Backbone Edge Bridge (BEB), configured with a Layer 2 Virtual Services Network (L2VSN) enabled;

an egress BEB bridge, configured with the Layer 2 Virtual Services Network (L2VSN) enabled;

a Shortest Path Bridge (SPB) network comprising the ingress BEB and the egress BEB, wherein the egress BEB is coupled with a Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) network and snoops PIM join messages and PIM prune messages for a multicast stream in the L2VSN in the SPB network; and

wherein the ingress BEB comprises:

a memory;

a processor;

a communications interface;

an interconnection mechanism coupling the memory, the processor and the communications interface; and

wherein the memory is encoded with an application that when performed on the processor, causes the processor to perform the operations of:

building a multicast tree in said SPB network for said multicast stream in accordance with said PIM join and prune messages; and

forwarding said multicast stream through the L2VSN in said SPB network in accordance with said multicast tree.

18. The computer system of claim 17 wherein said egress BEB includes a PIM-Snooping module and wherein said PIM join and prune messages are copied to said PIM-Snooping module in said ingress BEB.

19. The computer system of claim 18 wherein said PIM-Snooping module maintains a list of active receiver ports for each multicast stream based on said PIM join and prune messages.

20. The computer system of claim 17 wherein said ingress BEB checks for activity on said multicast stream and when said multicast stream has been inactive for a duration longer than an allowed aging time, said ingress BEB withdraws said advertisement for a Data I-SID that said ingress BEB allocated for said multicast stream.

Assignments (9)