METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR L3-AWARE SWITCHING IN AN ETHERNET PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORK

摘要

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that performs layer 3 (L3) aware switching in an Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) which includes a central node and at least one remote node. During operation, the system maintains a set of mapping information which indicates a correspondence relationship between a logical link identifier of a remote node, a medium access control (MAC) address for a subscriber coupled to the remote node, and an IP address for the subscriber. Upon receiving a packet which contains an IP address, the system selectively attaches a proper logical link identifier to the packet based on the mapping information and the IP address contained in the packet, thereby allowing only one proper remote node to receive the packet.