APPARATUS FOR ESTABLISHING TOPOLOGY, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMMUNICATING TOPOLOGY INFORMATION

摘要

PURPOSE: To supply network topology profile information to a topology manager by transmitting a link advertisement message of fixed length from each switch to an adjacent switch through a set-up virtual route/virtual channel in an ATM network. CONSTITUTION: A link advertisement message(LAM) is transmitted from respective ports to switches 211, 221, 231, 241 e.g. in the network. The information of fixed length is sent from the switches 211, 221, e.g. to their adjacent switches through the virtual route/virtual channel set up to make communication easy and delivered to the topology manager. The topology manager constitutes network topology information based on the received message LAM. Then the topology manager can inspect bidirectional links based on the received message LAM.