Patent ID: 9166905
Filing Date: 2015-10-20
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: interfacing, at a first port of a border switching device, a first cluster of first switching devices compatible with a software-defined networking (SDN) protocol, the first switching devices including the border switching device; interfacing, at a second port of the border switching device, a second cluster of second switching devices compatible with a protocol for an open systems interconnection (OSI) model layer; receiving, at the first port, data through the first cluster that is intended for a destination reachable only through the second cluster, the data formatted according to the SDN protocol; in response to receiving the data at the first port, effecting first multipathing through the first cluster using one or more third switching devices within the first cluster that are not compatible with the SDN protocol, via at least the border switching device tunneling traffic of the SDN protocol through the third switching devices using encapsulation at a layer level higher than a layer level of the SDN protocol.