Patent ID: 8885634
Filing Date: 2014-11-11
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A system for Carrier Ethernet using referential tables for forwarding decisions, comprising: a plurality of interconnected switches/routers, wherein one or more of the plurality of interconnected switches/routers comprises an ingress switch/router; wherein the ingress switch/router is configured to one of prioritize and shape data based upon a referential table comprising a plurality of clusters and associated priority and bandwidth for each of the plurality of clusters; wherein the referential table is utilized in addition to one or more Carrier Ethernet mechanisms for addressing or Quality of Service marking with the referential table configured to augment the one or more Carrier Ethernet mechanisms; wherein data entering at the ingress switch/router is assigned to one of the plurality of clusters based upon one or more of media access control (MAC) source and destination pair and virtual local area network (VLAN) identification; wherein the referential table is provided to the ingress switch/router through one of downloading using simple network management protocol and signaling using a control plane; and wherein the one or more Carrier Ethernet mechanisms comprise using labels between at least two of the plurality of interconnected switches/routers in a low speed, third party network to a first client and not using labels between at least another two of the plurality of interconnected switches/routers comprising a high speed network to a second client, wherein frames do not comprise labels in the high speed network comprising a Carrier Ethernet network utilizing the referential table in addition to the one or more Carrier Ethernet mechanisms, wherein the high speed network interconnects to the first client via the low speed, third party network, and wherein layer two Quality of Service policing and shaping is done on any layer through the referential table without attachment to a VLAN, MAC-in-MAC, or T-MPLS.