Patent ID: 7778162
Filing Date: 2010-08-17
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A data transmission apparatus for use in a multiple service ring comprising at least two nodes transmissively coupled to at least one aggregate pipe and to at least one tributary, said data transmission apparatus comprising: a tributary receiving (RX) framer transmissively coupled to a tributary, the tributary RX framer for deframing data frames received from said tributary and for extracting destination node addresses from received data frames; a transmitting (TX) framer for encapsulating destination node addresses and data received from the tributary into data frames for the multiple service ring and for transmitting the data frames for the multiple service ring along an aggregate pipe to a downstream neighbor node in the multiple service ring; a RX framer for receiving, and for deframing, data frames from the multiple service ring from an upstream neighbor node along an aggregate pipe of the multiple service ring to obtain at least destination node addresses and data; a filter for determining data frames for a local node based on at least one obtained destination node address, and for forwarding other data frames that are not for the local node to said TX framer to forward to another node of the multiple service ring; a tributary TX framer for encapsulating data frames for the local node into tributary data frames and for sending the tributary data frames to a corresponding tributary; wherein at least one aggregate pipe in the multiple service ring has an N-ring structure comprised of N−M unidirectional ringlets and M unidirectional counter-rotating ringlets, where N and M are integers and 1≦M<N; and a ring management unit for controlling use of ringlets in the at least one aggregate pipe, wherein controlling use of ringlets comprises assigning an (n−1)-th ringlet to transport data packets in a unidirectional direction and an n-th ringlet to transport control packets in a direction opposite to the unidirectional direction, where 1<n≦N.