USING LIVENESS OF PROTOCOLS AND/OR INTERFACES TO MAKE ROUTING DECISIONS

摘要

The liveness of routing protocols can be determined using a mechanism to aggregate liveness information for the protocols. The ability of an interface to send and receive packets and the forwarding capability of an interface can also be determined using this mechanism. Since liveness information for multiple protocols, the liveness of interfaces, the forwarding capability of interfaces, or both, may be aggregated in a message, the message can be sent more often than could individual messages for each of the multiple protocols. This allows fast detection of failures, and sending connectivity messages for the individual protocols, such as neighbor “hellos,” to be sent less often.

主权项

1. For use with a node of a communication network, a method comprising:
a) receiving, by the node, an aggregated message including for a first set of at least two different kinds of routing protocols of a neighbor node, at least two indicators, each indicator identifying (1) a different one of the at least two different kinds of routing protocols and (2) corresponding status information for each of the protocols of the first set of the at least two different kinds of routing protocols as data within the aggregated message; b) receiving, by the node, a time interval associated with the aggregated message; c) updating, by the node, protocol status information associated with the neighbor node using the aggregated message; and d) making a routing decision, by the node, using the updated protocol status information associated with the neighbor node.