METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CARRYING UNKNOWN TRAFFIC OVER A RESILIENT PACKET RING (RPR) USING TUNNELING

摘要

A method and corresponding apparatus allows unknown packet traffic, such as Ethernet traffic, to be carried on a Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) network without flooding the traffic on the RPR network. Modules in a station of the ring network compare a destination address in a packet traffic signal with known addresses and associate an identifier of a tunnel in the ring network with the packet traffic signal based on the comparison. The modules then associate with the packet traffic signal an identifier of a destination station in the ring network that corresponds to the identifier of the tunnel and forward the packet traffic signal to the destination station via the tunnel. By transmitting the packet traffic via tunnels instead of flooding the RPR network, spatial reuse may be implemented allowing the network to support a higher volume of traffic.