Method, apparatus, system, and article of manufacture for providing distributed convergence nodes in a communication network environment

摘要

Distributed convergence nodes referred to as “Supernodes”, embodied as a functional technology component within an end user application, automatically determine whether said component should become “active” and assume the responsibility of forwarding IP multicast data present on a LAN (which supports IP multicast communication) to a “Routing Supernode” via a WAN (which does not support IP multicast communication). The Routing Supernode, in turn, is responsible for forwarding that traffic to other Supernodes present on other LANs. The traffic sent to and from the Routing Supernode is sent via unicast communication. All Supernodes are responsible for forwarding traffic on their respective LAN across the WAN to a Routing Supernode, and for forwarding traffic received over the WAN from the Routing Supernode onto their own respective LANs. An election process determines which device in a LAN is to operate as a SuperNode.

主权项

1. A method of operation in a communication network environment, the communication network environment including a number of networked client devices that execute end-user applications and a number of non-user network infrastructure devices, the networked client devices and the non-user network infrastructure devices communicatively coupled in at least a first, a second, and a third local area network (LAN) separated from each other by a wide area network (WAN), the LANs being IP-multicast-capable and the WAN being non-IP-multicast-capable, the method comprising:
dynamically electing ones of the networked client devices in the first LAN as a first LAN distributed convergence node at respective times, at least the elected networked client device in the first LAN executing at least one end-user application; designating a device in the second LAN as a second LAN distributed convergence node, the second LAN distributed convergence node being a routing distributed convergence node; dynamically electing ones of the networked client devices in the third LAN as a third LAN distributed convergence node at respective times, at least the elected networked client device in the third LAN executing at least one end-user application; and communicating traffic between the first and the third LAN distributed convergence nodes via the routing distributed convergence node, wherein the traffic is communicated between the networked client devices within each of the first, the second and the third LANs via the end-user applications executing on the elected networked client devices using IP multicast communication, and the traffic is communicated between the first distributed convergence node and the routing distributed convergence node and between the routing distributed convergence node and the second distributed convergence node using unicast communication.