Methods and systems are provided for cooperating routers in communication networks. The cooperating routers conduct a handshake to exchange information with respect to “cooperation types” which they are capable of performing and/or are configured to perform. In an exemplary “emergency connection” cooperation type, one cooperating router may use the ISP connection of another cooperating router to send and receive packets. In an exemplary “bandwidth sharing” cooperation type, one cooperating router may make excess bandwidth available for use by other cooperating routers. In an exemplary “latency optimization” cooperation type, one cooperating router may use another cooperating router to transmit duplicates of packets or to implement suppression techniques.

The present disclosure provides a method and device for forwarding a priority tag across network segments. The method includes the following steps: performing networking by using a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) interface to form a network; enabling a VLAN Class Of Service (COS) and differentiated service code point in a priority tag of a message transmitted in the network to correspond to each other; in response to layer-3 forwarding of the message, using the differentiated service code point priority tag for the message, and copying a VLAN COS value of the message at an entry of a switch to a VLAN COS value of the message at an exit; and in response to subsequent layer-2 forwarding of the message, using the VLAN COS priority tag for the message to distinguish a priority of the message.

Disclosed service discovery methods include responding, by a node, to detecting a new connection to a switch port by performing new connection operations that include determining, using link-layer discovery protocol (LLDP) advertisements, a switch port number and self-assigning an IP address in accordance with a predetermined addressing protocol in which the self-assigned IP address is indicative of the switch port number. The IP address assigned to the node may indicate the node's switch port number. Disclosed methods may further include initiating a unicast discovery procedure to determine, via unicast messages exchanged between nodes connected to the switch, a switch port roster that lists or otherwise indicates nodes connected to the switch as well as their corresponding port numbers and services available from each node. The switch port roster may be distributed to each of the connected nodes. The unicast discovery procedure may be periodically launched to refresh and re-distribute the roster.

A system accesses a set of devices transferring a data element from a source device to a destination device. The system determines a transformation type implemented on the data element at each device. The system generates an array that uniquely defines the data element at each device. The array comprises the transformation type and an identifier of the device. The system generates a transformation dependency map that represents a set of transformation types implemented on the data element at different devices. The system determines a set of data transfer paths for the data element from the source device to the destination device based on the transformation dependency map. The system selects the shortest data transfer path for the data element that corresponds to the least number of hops between devices. The system communicates the data element from the source device to the destination device using the shortest data transfer path.

Described herein are systems, methods, and software to manage secure tunnel communications in multi-edge gateway computing environments. In one implementation, a control system identifies an edge gateway from a plurality of edge gateways to support a private network tunnel. The control system further identifies addressing attributes associated with communications directed over the private network tunnel and configures the plurality of edge gateways to forward packets associated with the addressing attributes to the identified edge gateway, wherein the edge gateway can process and forward the packets over the private network tunnel.

A method and system may provide virtual port communications. A data frame, containing a destination identifier in a destination field and payload, may be modified by inserting a first virtual machine tag therein. The first virtual machine tag may include a first virtual port identifier for identifying a first logical interface of a first virtual machine on a virtual machine host.

A multicast routing method and an interconnection device for a mesh network system, a mesh network system and a configuration method thereof are provided. The method includes, at each internal interconnection device among multiple interconnection devices of each processing subsystem: in response to receiving a multicast access request to a destination memory, determining a shortest path from each internal interconnection device to the destination memory based on a topology structure of the mesh network system; where the internal interconnection device has no link connected to an external processing subsystem; in response to determining that the number of the shortest path is equal to one, routing the multicast access request to the destination memory along the shortest path; in response to determining that the number of the shortest path is greater than one, determining a next-hop interconnection device for the multicast access request based on a second static routing policy.

A connection status detection method used for detecting connectivity of a segment routing (SR) path between nodes is disclosed. After receiving a path detection packet, a first node responds to the path detection packet based on connectivity of an SR path between the first node and a third node, and the path detection packet is used to indicate to detect the connectivity of the segment routing (SR) path between the nodes.

A method and apparatus are provided. The method includes: a first network device sends route information of a destination network device, where the route information includes a destination address of the destination network device, a primary next-hop address, and a backup next-hop address, the primary next-hop address includes a common address of the first network device and a second network device, for example, a loopback address, and the backup next-hop address includes an address of the first network device, for example, an IP address of the first network device. By using this method, when a fault occurs in a connection between the second network device and the destination network device, another network device may directly send a packet to the first network device according to the backup next-hop address, to ensure normal packet forwarding.

A network device receives an attribute identifying paths associated with an open shortest path first (OSPF) domain of a network and an intermediate system to intermediate system (ISIS) domain of the network, and provides the attribute to other network devices of the network. The network device receives traffic destined for one of the other network devices of the network, and determines that a primary path is unavailable for routing the traffic to the one of the other network devices. The network device selects a secondary path from the paths identified by the attribute. The secondary path is selected based on determining that the primary path is unavailable, and the secondary path is associated with the OSPF domain or the ISIS domain of the network. The network device provides the traffic to the one of the other network devices via the secondary path.