Supporting multiple IEC-101/IEC-104 masters on an IEC-101/IEC-104 translation gateway

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9467374-B2
Application number	US-201514961389-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 7, 2015
Priority date	May 25, 2011
Publication date	Oct 11, 2016
Grant date	Oct 11, 2016

Abstract

In one embodiment, a network device, such as a router, receives a frame containing a message from a first terminal unit. The network device modifies the received frame by replacing an original value of an originator identifier field in the frame with a new value that is locally unique on a particular data link. The network device than forwards the modified frame to a selected second terminal unit selected from a plurality of terminal units.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
receiving, at a network device, one or more frames from a plurality of terminal units in a network;
in response to determining that a received frame from a first terminal unit does not contain any originator identifier field, adding an originator identifier field with a first original value to the received frame from the first terminal unit, the first originator value being unique on a particular data link connected to the network device;
in response to determining that a received frame from a second terminal unit contains the originator identifier field with a second original value, modifying the received frame from the second terminal unit by replacing the second original value of the originator identifier field with a new value identified by the network device, the second original value placed in the originator identifier field by the second terminal unit to identify the second terminal unit; and
forwarding a modified frame to a third terminal unit coupled to the network device via the particular data link.

2. The method as in claim 1 , further comprising:
maintaining a mapping table at the network device, the mapping table having a plurality of entries, each entry of the plurality of entries mapping a tuple to a corresponding unique originator identifier (ID) value on the particular data link, the tuple consisting of a master controller number and an originator ID value.

3. The method as in claim 2 , wherein replacing the second original value further comprises:
identifying the new value for the second original value by examining a corresponding tuple of the mapping table comprising the second original value and an ID value of a particular master controller.

4. The method as in claim 3 , wherein the particular master controller comprises a supervisory control and data acquisition master.

5. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the particular data link is a serial transport data link.

6. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the particular data link is an Internet Protocol (IP) based link.

7. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the network device comprises a router.

8. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the received frame comprises a packet, message or signal.

9. An apparatus, comprising:
a processor; and
a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to perform operations comprising:
receiving one or more frames from a plurality of terminal units in a network;
in response to determining that a received frame from a first terminal unit does not contain any originator identifier field, adding an originator identifier field with a first original value to the received frame from the first terminal unit, the first originator value being unique on a particular data link connected to the apparatus;
in response to determining that a received frame from a second terminal unit contains the originator identifier field with a second original value, modifying the received frame from the second terminal unit by replacing the second original value of the originator identifier field with a new value identified by the apparatus, the second original value placed in the originator identifier field by the second terminal unit to identify the second terminal unit; and
forwarding a modified frame to a third terminal unit coupled to the apparatus via the particular data link.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to perform operations comprising:
maintaining a mapping table at the network device, the mapping table having a plurality of entries, each entry of the plurality of entries mapping a tuple to a corresponding unique originator ID value on the particular data link, the tuple consisting of a master controller number and an originator ID value.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein replacing the second original value further comprises:
identifying the new value for the second original value by examining a corresponding tuple of the mapping table comprising the second original value and an ID value of a particular master controller.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the particular master controller comprises a supervisory control and data acquisition master.

13. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the particular data link is a serial transport data link.

14. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the particular data link is an Internet Protocol (IP) based link.

15. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the network device comprises a router.

16. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the received frame comprises a packet, message or signal.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:
receiving one or more frames from a plurality of terminal units in a network;
in response to determining that a received frame from a first terminal unit does not contain any originator identifier field, adding an originator identifier field with a first original value to the received frame from the first terminal unit, the first originator value being unique on a particular data link connected to the apparatus;
in response to determining that a received frame from a second terminal unit contains the originator identifier field with a second original value, modifying the received frame from the second terminal unit by replacing the second original value of the originator identifier field with a new value identified by the apparatus, the second original value placed in the originator identifier field by the second terminal unit to identify the second terminal unit; and
forwarding a modified frame to a third terminal unit coupled to the apparatus via the particular data link.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17 , wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:
maintaining a mapping table at the network device, the mapping table having a plurality of entries, each entry of the plurality of entries mapping a tuple to a corresponding unique originator ID value on the particular data link, the tuple consisting of a master controller number and an originator ID value.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18 , wherein replacing the second original value further comprises:
identifying the new value for the second original value by examining a corresponding tuple of the mapping table comprising the second original value and an ID value of a particular master controller.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17 , wherein the particular data link is a serial transport data link or an Internet Protocol (IP) based link.

Assignees

• Cisco Tech Inc

Inventors

• Chandrasekaran Ravikumar

Classifications

• H04L45/74 Primary

  Address processing for routing · CPC title

• H04L45/02

  Topology update or discovery · CPC title

• H04L12/4625 Primary

  Single bridge functionality, e.g. connection of two networks over a single bridge · CPC title

• H04L29/06068

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L29/06095

  Electricity · mapped topic