A method and an apparatus for routing data packets. The solution in a communication network including a set of nodes, storing information regarding nodes of the network; and when transmitting a data packet to a destination node in the network, determining and including in the data packet the recipient identification; determining and including in the data packet the direction of the destination node in the network; determining and including in the data packet a hop count indicator indicating the number of node-to-node hops to the destination node; setting in the data packet the transmission direction indicator equal to a value corresponding to direction down and transmitting the packet.

A network routing table includes destination addresses of destination applications hosted on peer nodes of a network. A primary processor registers a first destination application and a second destination application, where the first destination application is the same as the second destination application and both the first destination application and the second destination application have the same destination address. That processor also provides the peer nodes and a secondary processor with a copy of the table. When the first destination application is inactivated, all peer nodes and the secondary processor are provided with a copy of an updated routing table indicating inactivation of the first destination application and routing of the application message to the second destination application. A further application message addressed from any of the peer nodes to the destination address associated with the inactivated first destination application will be routed, via the updated routing table, to the second destination application having the same destination address as the inactivated first destination application. The secondary processor provides the copy of the routing table and the copy of the updated routing table in case of failure of the primary processor in response to a request from the querying peer node.

A network device may receive an instruction to update a data structure implemented by the network device and update the data structure based on receiving the instruction. The data structure may include a routing instruction to direct the network device to provide a data flow to a server device for processing. The network device may receive the data flow destined for a destination device; determine the routing instruction based on at least a portion of an internet protocol (IP) address associated with the data flow and based on the data structure; execute the routing instruction to provide the data flow to the server device and to cause the data flow to be processed by the server device to form a processed data flow; and receive the processed data flow and provide the processed data flow towards the destination device.

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and an apparatus for performing communication in software-defined networking, and a communications system. The method includes: receiving a message sent by a network device, where the message includes a signaling message; determining, according to a control policy, a matching condition that matches the message, where the control policy includes a matching condition and operation information corresponding to the matching condition; processing the message according to the operation information corresponding to the matching condition that matches the message; and sending the processed message to the network device. According to the method and the apparatus for performing communication in software-defined networking, and the communications system in the present disclosure, a problem in the prior art that a control device serving as a network control center cannot communicate with a base station is resolved.

A communication apparatus which includes a plurality of network interfaces stores the address of the communication apparatus in a network in association with one of the plurality of network interfaces, decides, if there is a signal to be transmitted, a network interface to be used to transmit the signal out of the plurality of network interfaces, determines whether one or more first addresses associated with the decided network interface are stored, and performs control, if at least one of the first addresses is stored, so as to select the second address out of the first addresses based on a value at least used to set a communicable range, and transmit the signal to be transmitted by using the second address as a transmission source address.

An apparatus is provided for measuring the performance of a mobile communication system. The apparatus includes two measurement mobile interfaces and a measurement probe. The probe is connected to the backhauling interface of a base station of the system. Then, one measurement mobile interface transmits packets to the other measurement mobile interface via the base station. These packets are received at the base station, forwarded to the packet gateway of the system, sent back to the same base station, and finally received at the destination measurement mobile interface. Since the measurement probe belongs to the same apparatus as the mobile interfaces, it may detect the packets as transmitted/received at the backhauling interface. The probe then generates performance parameters relating to the packets as transmitted/received by the mobile interfaces and/or as detected at the backhauling interface. The system performance is then measured based on such parameters.

A wireless communication device, comprising radio frequency transceivers which transmit outbound messages to targeted receivers, and receive the inbound messages addressed to the respective transceiver; each having a processor which controls the transceiver to establish communication sessions according to a protocol, and processes targeting and address information. The transceiver communicates with a telephone device having a telephone address book containing information which defines the targets and address for a telephone network and perhaps other networks. The address book entries are human editable through a human machine user interface. The address book entries are intended for centrally controlled switch networks having hierarchically formatted address information, but since these are at least quasi-unique, they are used as address labels in an unswitched peer-to-peer network formed of the transceivers. This permits a common address scheme across the peer-to-peer network and switched network of the telephone device.

A network element of a software-defined network includes a processing system for maintaining a control system for managing data. The control system is maintained in accordance with configuration data received from a controller of the software-defined network. In a case where the control system has no entry corresponding to frame information related to a received data frame, the processing system checks whether status information indicates availability of the frame information to the controller. If the status information does not indicate the availability, the processor system arranges the frame information to be available to the controller and updates the status information to indicate the availability. Thus, data traffic related to data-driven learning and occurring between the network element and the controller can be reduced with the aid of the above-mentioned status information.

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for OAM in overlay networks. In response to receiving a packet associated with an OAM operation from a device in an overlay network, the system generates an OAM packet. The system can be coupled with the overlay network and can include a tunnel endpoint interface associated with an underlay address and a virtual interface associated with an overlay address. The overlay address can be an anycast address assigned to the system and another device in the overlay network. Next, the system determines that a destination address associated with the packet is not reachable through the virtual interface, the destination address corresponding to a destination node in the overlay network. The system also determines that the destination address is reachable through the tunnel endpoint interface. The system then provides the underlay address associated with the tunnel endpoint interface as a source address in the OAM packet.

An access-control device that controls access to encrypted messages. During operation, the access-control device can receive an access key for a corrupted message, and can receive a cover message digest associated with the corrupted message. The access-control device stores the access key in association with the cover message digest, and stores the cover message digest in a block chain. A respective block of the block chain includes at least one cover message digest, and a hash value of a previous block of the block chain.