Location aware service instance discovery

摘要

Network elements provide associated client devices querying for network services with one or more lists of services in accordance with a physical location of the associated client devices relative to the network elements irrespective of membership of the client devices in any one or more VLANs of the network. Network service instances on a first VLAN are reported to the querying client device on a second VLAN in accordance with a physical location of the client device relative to the network elements. The one or more lists of services provided to the querying client device include intuitive location tag information for identifying the services and the locations of the services. The location and service data of the location tag may be presented in a concatenated format.

主权项

1. An apparatus comprising:
a first interface configured to communicate with an associated first access point on an associated first virtual local area network (VLAN), the first access point supporting a first service instance set local to the first access point; a second interface configured to communicate with an associated second access point on an associated second VLAN, the second access point supporting a second service instance set local to the second access point; and gateway logic coupled with the first and second interfaces and configured to:
send and receive data via the first and second interfaces;receive, from the first access point, via the first interface, a first service query originating from an associated client of the first access point on the first VLAN; andreceive from the first access point first proximity data representative of a proximity of the second access point to the first access point;receive from the second access point second proximity data representative of a proximity of the first access point to the second access point;determine an association of the second access point with the first access point in accordance with the first proximity data, the second proximity data, or a combination of the first proximity data and the second proximity data; andin response to the first service query, transmit, to the first access point, via the first interface, data representative of the second service instance set supported by the second access point on the second VLAN based on the association.