Topology discovery for large ethernet networks
Proceedings of the 2001 conference on Applications, technologies, architectures, and protocols for computer communications
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Recent developments in Ethernet technology are pushing Ethernet from the local area network environment to metropolitan and wide area network environments. Automatic discovery of physical topology plays a crucial role in enhancing the manageability of modern Large Ethernet networks. Despite the importance of the problem, earlier research and commercial network management tools have typically concentrated on either discovering logical topology, or proprietary solutions targeting specific product families. Recent works [1], [2], [3] has demonstrated that physical topology can be determined using standard SNMP MIBs, but these algorithms depend on AFT entries and can find only spanning tree paths in the Ethernet network. The previous work [1] requires that AFT entries are complete, however it is very critical assumption in the true Ethernet network. In this paper, we have discarded the critical assumption because we divide Large Ethernet networks into bridged networks and host networks in order to overcome another AFT's limitation, an enormous size of AFT in core bridges [1], [3]. Most of all, our algorithm is the first solution to be able to discover real physical topology including inactive interfaces eliminated by the spanning tree protocol in Large Ether networks.