US 12,003,409 B2
Hierarchical ECMP control plane for dense topologies
Neeraj Malhotra, Los Gatos, CA (US); Satya Ranjan Mohanty, San Ramon, CA (US); Dongling Duan, San Jose, CA (US); Nitin Kumar, San Jose, CA (US); and Narasimha Prasad Salagame Nagaraj, Sunnyvale, CA (US)
Assigned to Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed by Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed on Aug. 29, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/897,890.
Application 17/897,890 is a continuation of application No. 17/160,102, filed on Jan. 27, 2021, granted, now 11,431,619.
Prior Publication US 2022/0417134 A1, Dec. 29, 2022
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. H04L 45/24 (2022.01); H04L 45/74 (2022.01); H04L 47/17 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 45/24 (2013.01) [H04L 45/74 (2013.01); H04L 47/17 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method within an equal cost multi-path routing (ECMP) control plane, the method comprising:
receiving, at a first intermediate node of multiple intermediate nodes, one or more Internet Protocol (IP) prefixes from a downstream node, wherein:
the multiple intermediate nodes broadcast a next-hop group identification (ID) to an upstream node;
the next-hop group ID identifies a next-hop group of the multiple intermediate nodes that each have access to the downstream node that has access to the one or more IP prefixes; and
the first intermediate node has been designated, by the upstream node, a primary designated speaker for the next-hop group of the multiple intermediate nodes; and
broadcasting, by only the first intermediate node to the upstream node, the one or more IP prefixes.