Abstract: A technique for associating clients with APs in an advantageous manner may involve local balancing of clients across APs. This may involve providing instructions to APs to disable client association. Alternatively, this technique may involve load balancing across controllers.

Abstract: A method may include receiving, in a first server from a second server, a request for a service of a network by a device; sending, from the first server to the second server, a response to the request for the service to permit access to the service; and sending state information about the response to a third server for storage in a database.

Abstract: A network device may include logic configured to receive a packet from a packet forwarding engine, create a flow ID for the packet, determine whether the flow ID matches one of a plurality of flow IDs in a table, determine whether the packet is associated with a flow to be sampled, sample the packet and additional packets associated with the flow that are received from the packet forwarding engine when the flow is to be sampled and transmit the flow ID and the sampled packets via a switch to an interface.

Abstract: A system selectively drops data from a queue. The system includes queues that temporarily store data, a dequeue engine that dequeues data from the queues, and a drop engine that operates independently from the dequeue engine. The drop engine selects one of the queues to examine, determines whether to drop data from a head of the examined queue, and marks the data based on a result of the determination.

Abstract: Using the ALTO Service, networking applications can request through the ALTO protocol information about the underlying network topology from the ISP or Content Provider. The ALTO Service provides information such as network resource preferences with the goal of modifying network resource consumption patterns while maintaining or improving application performance. This document describes, in one example, an ALTO server that implements enhancements to the ALTO service to assign a PID-type attribute to each of a set of one or more PIDs each associated with a subset of one or more endpoints of a network, wherein a PID-type attribute specifies a type for the subset of endpoints associated with the PID. The ALTO server generates an ALTO network map that includes a PID entry to describe each of the PIDs, wherein each PID entry includes a PID-type field that stores the assigned PID-type attribute for the PID described by the PID entry.

Abstract: Techniques are described for providing point-to-multipoint (P2MP) Ethernet service in a L2 network. Routers providing the Ethernet service allow an administrator to classify local attachment circuits as either “leaf” attachment circuits or “root” attachment circuits to define a tree-like architecture for forwarding Ethernet frames within a VPLS domain. Based on the classifications, each of router constructs flood domains, referred to herein as mesh groups, that control switching behavior between attachment circuits and pseudowires that transport the L2 communications through the VPLS domain. The routers utilize the mesh groups when switching L2 communications to enforce the requirements of E-TREE service or other L2 services in which L2 traffic is constrained within the L2 VPN to tree-like connectivity.

Abstract: Using the ALTO Service, networking applications can request through the ALTO protocol information about the underlying network topology from the ISP or Content Provider. The ALTO Service provides information such as preferences of network resources with the goal of modifying network resource consumption patterns while maintaining or improving application performance. This document describes, in one example, an ALTO server that implements enhancements to the ALTO service to enable initiating incremental updates of network and cost maps to ALTO clients upon receiving status information from a content delivery network (CDN) node.

Abstract: Using the ALTO Service, networking applications can request through the ALTO protocol information about the underlying network topology from the ISP or Content Provider. The ALTO Service provides information such as preferences of network resources with the goal of modifying network resource consumption patterns while maintaining or improving application performance. This document describes, in one example, an ALTO server that intersects network and cost maps for a first network with network and cost maps for a second network to generate a master cost map that includes one or more master cost entries that each represent a cost to traverse a network from an endpoint in the first network to an endpoint in the second network. Using the master cost map, a redirector may select a preferred node in the first network with which to service a content request received from a host in the second network.

Abstract: Systems and methods consistent with the present invention provide a mechanism that can efficiently manage multiple queues and maintain fairness among ports while not placing additional performance demands on the memory used to store the queue data structures. Within a port, high priority traffic is dropped only if it is consuming more than its fair share of bandwidth allocated to that port. Queue arbitration is of low performance cost and simple because it arbitrates only across queues per port, rather than across all the queues in parallel. Accordingly, fair arbitration with relatively little hardware cost.

Abstract: A reversible fan tray device is provided for a power supply unit. The fan tray device includes a mounting panel to be removably mounted to the power supply, a fan unit secured to the mounting panel to provide airflow through the electronic device, and an interconnection board secured to the mounting panel to provide an electrical connection between the fan unit and the power supply unit. The mounting panel can be positioned in either of two orientations, the first orientation to draw external air into the power supply unit and the second orientation to force internal air out of the power supply unit. The interconnection board mates with a connector on the power supply unit when the fan tray cassette is in either of the two orientations. The interconnection board provides an airflow direction indication to the power supply unit for an existing orientation of the two orientations.

Abstract: A network device includes a data structure and an ager. The data structure includes a group of positions. One or more of the positions are associated with at least one item. The ager is configured to sequentially analyze each position of the group of positions, and recycle, at each analyzed position, any item associated with the analyzed position.

Abstract: Loop detection information, such as information associated with the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), is synchronized within virtual private networks. A routing protocol, such as the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), is extended in a manner that allows STP information or other loop detection information to be opaquely communicated between routing devices across an intermediate network. These techniques may, for example, be useful in environments where Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) is run through one or more intermediate networks.

Abstract: A method for emulating a nexthop instruction in microcode with the assistance of dedicated hardware to extract read and write addressing from the nexthop instruction instead of performing this operation in microcode. A method for emulating a nexthop instruction in microcode with the assistance of dedicated hardware to compare a nexthop read address to a special value and to indicate whether the nexthop read address matches the special value, instead of performing this operation in microcode. A method for determining a network address by performing a single extraction of bit fields of a tree instruction to allow multiple tree search processes to be performed.

Abstract: Principles of the invention are described for providing multicast virtual private networks (MVPNs) across a public network that are capable of carrying high-bandwidth multicast traffic with increased scalability. In particular, the MVPNs may transport layer three (L3) multicast traffic, such as Internet Protocol (IP) packets, between remote sites via the public network. The principles described herein may reduce the overhead of protocol independent multicast (PIM) neighbor adjacencies and customer control information maintained for MVPNs. The principles may also reduce the state and the overhead of maintaining the state in the network by removing the need to maintain at least one dedicated multicast tree per each MVPN.

Abstract: A device described herein may include an input port operable to receive data packets; a switching board operable to classify the data packets, determine whether the data packets should be accepted by the device, and determine whether received data packets are first data packets in a session; a management board operable to receive the data packets from the switching board that were determined by the switching board to be the first data packets in a session; and one or more processing boards operable to receive data packets from the switching board that were determined by the switching board to not be the first data packets in a session and to process the received data packets.

Abstract: A provider edge device, associated with a virtual private local area network service (VPLS) system, includes a memory to store instructions to implement a pseudowire mechanism to receive a first data frame from a source customer edge (CE) device associated with the VPLS system, incorporate the first data frame into a first VPLS packet, determine whether the source CE device is a single-homed CE device or a multi-homed CE device, and incorporate, into the first VPLS packet, a first pseudowire label, if the source CE device is a single-homed CE device, and incorporate, into the first VPLS packet, a second pseudowire label, different from the first pseudowire label, if the source CE device is a multi-homed CE device; and a processor to execute the instructions.

Abstract: In general, techniques are described to dynamically redefine a preference value used during route resolution. A network device, such as a router, may implement the techniques to improve a usability aspect of the router. The router may comprise an interface card that receives messages describing one or more of a plurality of routes. The router may also include a control unit that stores data defining a policy. The policy may comprise rules by which the router determines the preference value for one of the plurality of routes. The policy dynamically redefines the preference value as two or more bit fields rather than viewing the preference value as an integer value. The control unit further sets each of the two or more bit fields of the local preference value in accordance with the policy and associates the at least one of the routes with the determined local preference value.

Abstract: A technique for wireless load balancing involves providing a wireless infrastructure that creates a target band option and helps push clients toward that band. An example of a method according to the technique involves, by way of example but not limitation, responding only to probe requests on a first band when a client is detected on the first band and a second band. For example, using the techniques described herein, a platform that is both 802.11a and 802.11b/g compliant may attempt to connect preferentially to the 802.11b/g band of a wireless network, and be migrated toward the 802.11a band instead.

Abstract: A method is provided for queuing packets. A packet may be received and its flow identified. It may then be determined whether a flow queue has been assigned to the identified flow. The identified flow may be dynamically assigning to an available flow queue when it is determined that a flow queue has not been assigned to the identified flow. The packet may be enqueued into the available flow queue.

Abstract: The invention is directed to techniques for managing filter rules applied to network traffic at a network device. A network device merges multiple filter rules associated with separate filter matching modules to reduce lookup cycles in a forwarding path of the network device. The network device may thus simultaneously apply multiple filter rules in a reduced number of clock cycles. A network device comprises an interface that receives packets from a network, a filter memory that stores a plurality of filters, and a plurality of filter matching modules that apply the filters to packets in a forwarding path of the network device. A filter control module merges two or more filters each associated with a different one of the filter matching modules into a single merged filter, and stores the merged filter to the filter memory. The network device applies the merged filter to packets in the forwarding path.