Patent ID: 9515918
Filing Date: 2016-12-06
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method for maintaining a bridging network communication path table, the method comprising: performing a shortest path first (SPF) computation to build a communication path table for a bridging network that has a transparent interconnection of lots of links (TRILL) topology with equal cost multipath (ECMP) paths, wherein the communication path table indicates a plurality of active ECMP paths between a first routing bridge and a second routing bridge in the bridging network, and wherein the SPF computation ranks each active ECMP path of the plurality of active ECMP paths based on: a link value that represents a number of links included in the active ECMP path, a reliability value for one or more of the links included in the active ECMP path, and an expected volume of traffic to be transferred through one or more of the links included in the active ECMP path; determining a failed communication link between the first routing bridge and the second routing bridge in the bridging network; identifying, in the communication path table, a first ECMP path of the plurality of active ECMP paths that includes the failed communication link; and responsive to identifying the first ECMP path that includes the failed communication link, adding an indication to the communication path table that the first ECMP path is not active and postponing an SPF computation to rebuild the communication path table until a later time.