Connection-oriented communication scheme for connectionless communication traffic

摘要

A communications scheme for configuring a network comprising a plurality of connected switching apparatus, each switching apparatus having functionality for implementing connectionless forwarding of received communications traffic to selectively provide a connection-oriented service for said received communications traffic, the scheme comprising: determining in a control plane index header field values to identify connectionless traffic received at switching apparatus for which a connection is to be established between a source node and a destination node; providing each switching apparatus necessary to implement the connection with information from the control plane, the information enabling the data forwarding tables of the switching to be populated with said index header field values in association with egress ports of the switching apparatus; and disabling all other functionality on said switching apparatus capable of populating the data forwarding tables with index information associated with said egress ports of the switching apparatus necessary to establish said connection.