Patent ID: 9444728
Filing Date: 2016-09-13
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method, comprising: performing operations to automatically discover elements via a plurality of links and automatically configure a single logical packet switching device comprising said elements, with said elements including a first host device and a plurality of cascaded aggregation nodes, with each of the plurality of aggregation nodes connected to customer network devices, and with the plurality of network links communicatively coupling the plurality of cascaded aggregation nodes to adjacent other one or more nodes of the plurality of cascaded aggregation nodes to form a cascaded topology with an end node of the plurality of aggregation nodes of the cascaded topology directly coupled to the first host device, and with the cascaded topology of the plurality of aggregation nodes communicatively coupling each of the plurality of cascaded aggregation nodes to the first host device; wherein the single logical packet switching device is represented to external devices as a single packet switching device in contrast to multiple devices (a) for management purposes, and (b) for switching or routing purposes; and wherein said operations include: for each particular node of the plurality of cascaded aggregation nodes: said particular node receiving an initialization packet originated by the first host device from the first host device or an adjacent node of the plurality of cascaded aggregation nodes; and in response to determining that the initialization did not come over a duplicate path from the first host device establishing a communications session between the particular node and the first host device over a path taken by the initialization packet from the first host device to the particular node; and each of the plurality of aggregation nodes receiving customer packet traffic from at least one of said customer network devices and forwarding said customer packet traffic to the first host device over said established communications session, with the first host device then forwarding said customer traffic over a said established communications session to a corresponding one of the plurality of cascaded aggregation nodes which then forwards to one of said customer network devices.