A method, apparatus, and computer-readable storage medium are disclosed for processing shared risk group (SRG) information in communications networks. The method includes processing, at a first network layer, first network information comprising a plurality of SRG identifiers. The processing includes producing second network information comprising a smaller number of SRG identifiers than that of the plurality of SRG identifiers. The method further includes sending at least a portion of the second network information to the second network layer. The apparatus includes a network interface adapted to send network information comprising SRG information, a processor coupled to the network interface, and a memory coupled to the processor and adapted to store program instructions operable when executed to carry out steps of the method. The storage medium is configured to store program instructions that when executed are configured to cause a processor to carry out steps of the method.

In one embodiment, a device-independent label is associated with multiple network devices such that the packet switching devices in a network will forward a packet based on the device-independent label to one of these multiple network devices. In one embodiment, these device-independent labels include, but are not limited to, domain-identifying labels and forwarding-punt labels. In one embodiment, a domain-identifying label is defined as a label that identifies a plurality of network nodes without identifying a single particular network node, single particular interface, nor single particular link. In one embodiment, a first-domain forwarding-punt label is placed at the top of the label stack to identify to forward the label-switched packet to any one of a plurality of designated forwarding nodes corresponding to the first-domain forwarding-punt label (e.g., for sending to a packet switching device which will have forwarding information for the second domain-identifying label).

A method, non-transitory computer readable medium, and storage controller computing device that establishes an application interface and a source interface to a programmable switch. A flow table of the programmable switch is updated to insert routing actions associated with the application and source interfaces. Next, when an application request received from an application is locally serviceable is determined. When the determination indicates the application request is not locally serviceable, a migration request for data associated with the application request is sent to the programmable switch from the source interface and a destination address of a source storage server is used. Additionally, a migration response to the migration request including the data from the source storage server is received from the source interface. The data is then stored locally in a destination storage server and thereby is migrated from the source storage server.

According to one embodiment, a method includes receiving, by a first edge device at a first site, a first site overlay control plane message including control plane information. The first edge device translates the first site overlay control plane message into a core overlay control plane message. The first edge device sends the core overlay control plane message over a core network to a second edge device at a second site.

A network element includes a processing system for supporting inter-area data transfer paths which are Border Gateway Protocol load sharing data paths. The processing system maintains usage attributes expressing whether a given inter-area data transfer path is to be used for servicing a given traffic category. The processing system recognizes a traffic category of a data frame to be forwarded on the basis of for example the Quality-of-Service class of the data frame. Thereafter, the processing system selects one of the inter-area data transfer paths at least partly on the basis of the usage attributes and the recognized traffic category, and forwards the data frame to the selected inter-area data transfer path. Therefore, Border Gateway Protocol load sharing can be utilized for providing for example Quality-of-Service class differentiated traffic engineering.

A method for failure recovery in a virtual network environment including a virtual network having virtual nodes and virtual links mapped onto substrate nodes and substrate paths, respectively, of a substrate network, the method comprising, in response to an indication of failure of at least one substrate node in the substrate network: re-mapping a virtual node mapped to a failed substrate node to a selected substrate node other than the failed substrate node; and re-mapping a virtual link mapped to a substrate path that involves the failed substrate node to a substrate path that does not involve the failed substrate node; wherein the re-mapping is carried out to achieve at least one re-mapping objective.

Provided is a communication device in which communication between hosts of a layer 2 network is overlaid on a layer 3 network. The communication device manages a first MTU length of each communication path with respect to a plurality of communication paths in the layer 3 network, determines a second MTU length based on information to be added in cases where communication between the hosts of the layer 2 network is overlaid via the plurality of communication paths, and notifies the hosts of the second MTU length.

An Application Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) node comprising a processor configured to import a first set of network information from one or more software defined networking (SDN) nodes, aggregate the network information received from the SDN nodes, calculate a plurality of traffic optimization decisions based on the aggregated network information, and forward the traffic optimization decisions to the SDN nodes. Also disclosed is a method for optimizing traffic using a SDN node and an Application Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) node, the method comprising receiving a request for network resources from a node, obtaining a plurality of traffic optimization information from the ALTO node, negotiating one or more paths with a second SDN node using the traffic optimization information received from the ALTO node, constructing the paths, and sending a response to the node that indicates the node may forward packets via one of the paths.

Service function chaining is a sequence of service function instances that traffic flows need to traverse through in order. Those service function instances are not required to reside on the direct path and traffic flow, but steered through network nodes. Service function instances and network nodes process the packets that carry a service function chain (SFC) header. The packets are encapsulated by a virtual network overlay header and forwarded through the service function instances in an SFC. The SFC header in specific format will prompt the network nodes to re-route the packets in the traffic flow using destination based forwarding or path based forwarding method in the packet network as well as an SDN controller and/or in-band control plane, and able to carry the metadata with the packets.

In an approach for achieving resilience and load balancing control over layer 2 gateways in a cluster, a processor forms a cluster, wherein the cluster includes one or more layer 2 gateways. A processor registers endpoints for a tenant system attached to a virtual network through a bridge network to add to an endpoint database used to associate a destination MAC address with the cluster. A processor distributes flow of data.