Multi-priority frame forwarding in tree-based routing Ethernet

Local area network (LAN) technology is extensively employed in backbones and campus networks due to its excellent price/performance ratio and its installation convenience. However, with the increasing demand for multimedia and real-time applications, LAN requires additional operations to support Quality-of-Service (QoS). In this paper, we propose a novel bridge protocol that can forward frames with different priorities using different paths based on Hierarchical Local MAC (HLMAC) address. It can reduce storage requirement significantly and avoid broadcast storm to save bandwidth. The HLMAC can simplify the routing and avoid the need of all nodes having global knowledge of the network topology. Frame can be forwarded at very high speed by decoding the HLMAC gradually, without routing table lookuping or port address learning. Through simulation, it is shown that this protocol can improve the throughput and path length, and ensure the forwarding path of higher priority frame is superior to a lower priority frame. © 2012 ACADEMY PUBLISHER.