Metro Ethernet Networks

Automatic discovery of physical topology plays a crucial role in enhancing the manageability of modern metro 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 have demonstrated that network topology can be determined using the standard simple network management protocol (SNMP) management information base (MIB), but these algorithms depend on address forwarding table (AFT) entries and can find only spanning tree paths in an Ethernet mesh network. A previous work by Breibart et al. requires that AFT entries be complete; however, that can be a risky assumption in a realistic Ethernet mesh network. In this paper, we have proposed a new physical topology discovery algorithm which works without complete knowledge of AFT entries. Our algorithm can discover a complete physical topology including inactive interfaces eliminated by the spanning tree protocol in metro Ethernet networks. The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated by implementation.