United States Patent
US Patent 6496502: Distributed multi-link trunking method and…
US 6496502 · granted 2002-12-17
| Patent Number | 6496502 |
|---|---|
| Title | Distributed multi-link trunking method and apparatus |
| Filed | 1998-06-29 |
| Granted | 2002-12-17 |
| Inventor(s) | David B. Fite, Jr., Nicholas Ilyadis, Ronald M. Salett |
| Assignee | Nortel Networks Ltd |
| CPC Classification | H04L12/28, H04L12/46, H04L12/4641 |
| Number of Claims | 4 |
Abstract
A method and apparatus for providing data communication between a source station having multiple connections to a first switch and a destination station having multiple connections to a second switch. A trunk identifier to each port on the first switch and each port on the second switch. A data frame is encoded with the trunk identifier for an ingress port on the first switch. The data frame is sent to the second switch from the first switch. A list of egress ports for the destination station is obtained from a station list contained in the second switch. An egress port is selected from the list of egress ports based upon the source address, destination address and trunk identifier. The data frame is sent to the destination station through the selected egress port.
Claims Summary
1. In a data communications network, a method of communicating between a source station having multiple connections to a first switch and a destination station having multiple connections to a second switch comprising the steps of: