Patent ID: 8391180

Claim:
A method to develop hierarchical ring based tree (HRBT) for transmission of unicast and/or multicast traffic, said method comprising steps of: i. broadcasting a configuration frame by a source node in a clockwise direction through a clockwise port connected to a first neighboring node and in a counter-clockwise direction through a counter-clockwise port connected to a second neighboring node; ii. receiving the configuration frame by the first and second neighboring nodes and thereafter learning a media access control (MAC) address, and other related information of the source node and other nodes participating in formation of the hierarchical ring-based tree; iii. creating a new configuration frame by the first and second neighboring nodes by appending the MAC address, a Node-ID, and other relevant information of the first and second neighboring nodes and thereby broadcasting the new configuration frame through an available port of the first neighboring node and the second neighboring node; iv. receiving the new configuration frame by a C-node from the first and second neighboring nodes and determining primary and secondary paths of the hierarchical ring based tree; v. sending notification, by the C-node, to the source node to determine the primary and secondary paths of the hierarchical ring based tree; and vi. processing, by the source node, the notification from the C-node and sending notification to one-hop nodes through non-hierarchical ports regarding existence of a hierarchy and configuring the non-hierarchical ports in a discard state to configure the hierarchical ring based tree including the primary path and the secondary path.