System and method for mitigating multicast message duplication in a wireless network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9356817-B2
Application number	US-201213460819-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 30, 2012
Priority date	Apr 30, 2012
Publication date	May 31, 2016
Grant date	May 31, 2016

Abstract

According to one embodiment of the invention, a method for mitigating duplication of multicast data streams to wireless client devices. The method comprises the operations of detecting, by one or more network devices, a multicast message, and controlling, by the one or more network devices, a forwarding of information within the multicast message to a network device handling multicast data transmissions. The forwarding is controlled based on information within the multicast message and the presence of such information in prior established data structure.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising;
detecting, by a network device, multicast messages;
formulating, by the network device, a first data structure to store a plurality of parameters recovered from each detected multicast message, the plurality of parameters include a multicast group address along with a corresponding unique identifier representative of a virtual local area network (VLAN) pool of a plurality of VLAN pools and Basic Service Set Identifier (BSSID);
receiving an incoming multicast message having an associated multicast group address, a unique identifier representative of a VLAN pool and a BSSID;
determining that the multicast group address, the unique identifier and the BSSID of the incoming message do not match stored triplets of multicast group address, a unique identifier and a BSSID;
performing an action based on a further determination of whether the multicast group address and the unique identifier associated with the incoming multicast message match a duplet of the stored multicast group address and the corresponding stored unique identifier; and
forwarding information within the incoming multicast message to a second network device responsible for transmission of multicast data if the multicast group address and the unique identifier does not match the duplet of the stored multicast group address and the corresponding stored unique identifier.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of parameters are a triplet including the multicast group address, the unique identifier and the BSSID contained in an entry of the first data structure.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the incoming message is discarded when the information within the multicast group address and the unique identifier associated with the incoming message match the duplet of the stored multicast group address and the corresponding stored unique identifier.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detecting of the multicast messages comprises detecting a request to join a particular multicast group.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the request to join the particular multicast group is one of an Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) JOIN message.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detecting of the multicast messages comprises detecting a request to leave a particular multicast group.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the action comprises removing intersecting VLAN identifiers in the plurality of VLAN pools.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the action comprises keeping a subset of VLAN identifiers in the plurality of VLAN pools.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the subset of VLAN identifiers comprises an overlapped set of VLAN identifiers in the plurality of VLAN pools.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
controlling, by the network device, a forwarding of information within the incoming multicast message to the second network device handling multicast data transmissions, wherein the incoming multicast message is discarded if the information within the incoming multicast message is already stored by the one or more network devices.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the controlling of the forwarding of information comprises forwarding the information if the information within the incoming multicast message has not been received in a message prior to the incoming multicast message.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
assigning, by the network device, a single unique identifier for each virtual local area network (VLAN) pool of the plurality of VLAN pools utilized within a network.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the controlling of the forwarding of information comprises:
forwarding the information within the multicast message to a network device handling transmission of multicast data streams if the information within the multicast message differs from information already stored in the data structure.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing embedded instructions that are executed by one or more mechanisms implemented within a network device to perform a plurality of operations comprising:
detecting multicast messages;
formulating a first data structure to store a plurality of parameters recovered from each detected multicast message, the plurality of parameters include a multicast group address along with a corresponding unique identifier representative of a virtual local area network (VLAN) pool of a plurality of VLAN pools and Basic Service Set Identifier (BSSID);
performing an action based on whether a multicast group address and the unique identifier associated with an incoming multicast message match a duplet of the stored multicast group address and the corresponding stored unique identifier, the action being one of removing intersecting VLAN identifiers in the plurality of VLAN pools and keeping a subset of VLAN identifiers in the plurality of VLAN pools; and
forwarding information within the incoming multicast message to a second network device responsible for transmission of multicast data if the multicast group address and the unique identifier does not match the duplet of the stored multicast group address and the corresponding stored unique identifier.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the plurality of parameters are a triplet including the multicast group address, the unique identifier and the BSSID contained in an entry of the first data structure.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the incoming message is discarded when the information within the multicast group address and the unique identifier associated with the incoming message match the duplet of the stored multicast group address and the corresponding stored unique identifier.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the detecting of the multicast messages comprises detecting one of a request to join a particular multicast group and a request to leave the particular multicast group.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17 , wherein the request to join the particular multicast group is one of an Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) JOIN message and a Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) JOIN message.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the subset of VLAN identifiers comprises an overlapped set of VLAN identifiers in the plurality of VLAN pools.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the plurality of operations further comprises:
controlling a forwarding of information within the incoming multicast message to the second network device handling multicast data transmissions, wherein the incoming multicast message is discarded if the information within the incoming multicast message is already stored by the one or more network devices.

21. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 20 , wherein the controlling of the forwarding of information comprises:
forwarding the information if the information within the incoming multicast message has not been received in a message prior to the incoming multicast message; and
forwarding the information within the multicast message to a second network device handling transmission of multicast data streams if the information within the multicast message differs from information already stored in the data structure.

22. The non-transitory computer-readabl

Assignees

• Agarwal Gopal
• Sharma Manas
• Gupta Manoj
• Aruba Networks Inc

Inventors

• Agarwal Gopal
• Sharma Manas
• Gupta Manoj

Classifications

• H04L45/745

  Address table lookup; Address filtering · CPC title

• H04L69/22

  Parsing or analysis of headers · CPC title

• H04L47/806 Primary

  Broadcast or multicast traffic · CPC title

• H04L12/4645

  Details on frame tagging (routing of packets H04L45/00; support for virtual LAN H04L49/354) · CPC title

• H04L29/0653 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic