Patent ID: 8565069
Filing Date: 2013-10-22
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for diminishing data lost at a packet network device as the result of a failed communication link, comprising: detecting a failure of a communication link to which a first egress port in a packet network device is connected; in response to the detected failure, disabling the first egress port and enabling a second egress port on the packet network device that was previously blocked and that is a member of the same VLAN as the first egress port; using an address resolution protocol cache flush disable function to temporarily inhibit a standard address resolution protocol function from removing layer-3 forwarding table entries associated with the disabled first egress port while updated layer-3 forwarding information for the second egress port is learned; identifying one or more layer-3 table entries associated with the disabled first egress port and using a layer-3 forwarding table update function to replace a portion of each of the one or more layer-3 forwarding table entries with a multicast identity of the VLAN such that traffic destined for the disabled first egress port is temporarily flooded to a plurality of ports that are members of the VLAN; and updating the one or more layer-3 forwarding table entries to replace the multicast identity of the VLAN with the learned layer-3 forwarding information for the second egress port.