Techniques are described for implementing one or more logical routers within a single physical routing device. These logical routers, as referred to herein, are logically isolated in the sense that they achieve operational and organizational isolation within the routing device without requiring the use of additional or redundant hardware, e.g., additional hardware-based routing controllers. The routing device may, for example, include a computing platform, and a plurality of software process executing within the computing platform, wherein the software processes operate as logical routers. The routing device may include a forwarding component shared by the logical routers to forward network packets received from a network in accordance with the forwarding tables.

A method and apparatus for analyzing IP data flows for the determination of an alternate routing path for network traffic between a known first network and a destination within an unknown second network on the Internet. An initial path between the first network and the destination exists. The IP address of the destination is determined and looked up in an Internet database. An alternative route to the destination is determined based on information from the Internet database in order to avoid an interconnecting transit network.

Dynamic advertisement routing is disclosed. For example, a plurality of internet protocol (“IP”) addresses associated with respective plurality of target nodes is stored in a routing pool. Each IP address in the routing pool is pinged through each of first and second load balancer network interfaces. Network routes associated with target nodes are updated based on a first plurality of ping responses. Communications sessions are established with target nodes through respective network routes. IP addresses are pinged and respective latencies in a latency cache are updated based on a second plurality of ping responses. A first request directed to the plurality of target nodes is received and is determined to be sent to a first target node based on the latency cache forwarded to the first target node via the first network route.

Apparatuses for commissioning a joining node into a mesh network (7) comprising a relay node (2) and a router node (3, 4) is provided, wherein the router node (3, 4) is connected to a wide area network (5) including a server (6) for controlling grant of commissioning requests to join the mesh network (7). A receiving unit (203) is provided for receiving an authentication token from a relay node. A key generating unit (204) is provided for generating a pair-wise identity-based key between the joining node and the router node based on the identity of the joining node and an identity of the router node. A checking unit (205) is provided for checking whether the authentication token is valid based on at least the pair-wise identity-based key. A forwarding unit (206) for forwarding the handshake signal to the server over the wide area network if the authentication token is valid.

A first device may receive network traffic including a first label. The first label may be an inclusive multicast label associated with a second device. The second device may be a designated forwarder for an Ethernet segment. The first device may determine a second label based on receiving the network traffic including the first label. The second label may be used to route the network traffic to a customer edge device, via a third device, rather than the second device. The third device may be a non-designated forwarder for the Ethernet segment. The first device may provide the network traffic, including the second label, to the third device to permit the third device to provide, via the Ethernet segment, the network traffic to the customer edge device based on the second label when a failure occurs in association with the second device.

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.

A connected computer may be operated as node by inspecting communications from other nodes that pass through that node. From the communications, two or more pointers may be determined for the given node. These pointers may include a first pointer identified by a default designation that links the given node to a first node in the network, and a second pointer to another node. The second pointer may be identified by a determination that a designated criteria has been satisfied after the given node is placed on the network.

A RAN based data processing system is configured for content caching with remote charging services. The system can include a base station that includes an antenna, a receiver, a transmitter, a processor, a local cache, and a network interface to a data communications network. The system also can include an RNC coupled to the base station over the data communications network. The system yet further can include a charging service executing in memory of a host computer recording charges for data services provided in the RAN. Finally, the system can include a caching with remote charging module executing by the processor of the base station. The module can include program code enabled to receive a data request from an end user device, to route the request to a content server in a computer communications network through a coupled CN, to receive a response to the request, to cache the response in the local cache, to forward the response to the end user device, and to transmit data characteristic of the response to the charging service external.

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.

The embodiments disclose a method and communication node for configuring a multicast group in a Multiple Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network. The method comprises: obtaining a multicast group configuration request to configure the multicast group of at least one downstream node in the MPLS network, the at least one downstream node may comprise a transit node, a leaf node or the combination thereof; generating a multicast group configuration packet based on the multicast group configuration request; and transmitting the multicast group configuration packet from the root node to the at least one transit node and/or leaf node via a multicast tree in the MPLS network.