Abstract: Embodiments herein generally provide techniques for upgrading a virtual router (VR) comprising first and second physical routers used to route data between network devices. Before upgrade the first physical router, one or more ports of the router are disabled which causes data paths previously flowing through the first router to flow through the second router. After performing the upgrade, the first router is rebooted and uses a unique router ID to discover the network topology of an external network coupled to the VR. Once the network topology is identified, the first router activates a routing application (e.g., a BGP routing application) which enables the router to process control plane traffic received from the second router. Once routing information is gathered, the first router is able to assume the responsibility of forwarding data packets in the network, thereby freeing the second router to be upgraded.

Abstract: Embodiments herein generally provide techniques for upgrading a virtual router (VR) comprising first and second physical routers used to route data between network devices. Before upgrade the first physical router, one or more ports of the router are disabled which causes data paths previously flowing through the first router to flow through the second router. After performing the upgrade, the first router is rebooted and uses a unique router ID to discover the network topology of an external network coupled to the VR. Once the network topology is identified, the first router activates a routing application (e.g., a BGP routing application) which enables the router to process control plane traffic received from the second router. Once routing information is gathered, the first router is able to assume the responsibility of forwarding data packets in the network, thereby freeing the second router to be upgraded.

Abstract: According to one embodiment, processing data packets includes inserting marker packets into a data stream at time intervals. Each marker packet includes a respective first time stamp indicative of the time the marker packet is inserted. An estimate of the age of a data packet is calculated based on a current time system and the respective first time stamp of the last marker packet that was inserted into the data stream before the data packet.

Abstract: A network node for a scalable packet based network comprising ports for reception and transmission of data packets of network segments connected to the respective ports of the network node, a forwarding table which stores for each port of the network node addresses of nodes reachable through the respective port of the network node, a registering table which stores a list of node addresses registered with the network node wherein the network node forms a registrar node for these addresses, and a registrar table which stores information data on all network nodes which are registrar nodes of the network.

Abstract: According to one embodiment, processing data packets includes inserting marker packets into a data stream at time intervals. Each marker packet includes a respective first time stamp indicative of the time the marker packet is inserted. An estimate of the age of a data packet is calculated based on a current time system and the respective first time stamp of the last marker packet that was inserted into the data stream before the data packet.