Patent application number | Description | Published |
20130028070 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR RESILIENT ROUTING OF CONTROL TRAFFIC IN A SPLIT-ARCHITECTURE SYSTEM - The invention is a routing algorithm characteristic that minimizes the weight, meaning that the probability that a node is disconnected from the controller in case of a failure in the network is minimized. The first algorithm used in the invention is an approximation algorithm for finding the controller routing tree that provides maximum resilience in the network. The algorithm is referred to herein as the Maximum Resilience (MR) algorithm. The heuristic MR algorithm selects a shortest-path tree as a starting point and modifies the tree in order to improve resilience. The output of the MR algorithm is not necessarily a shortest-path tree, but provides more resilience compared to the initial tree. The RASP algorithm provides a shortest-path tree with improved network resilience compared to other possible shortest-path trees. | 01-31-2013 |
20130028073 | Controller Placement for Fast Failover in the Split Architecture - A method implemented by a network topology design system, the network topology design system including a processing device. The method to determine placement of a controller within a network with a split architecture where control plane components of the split architecture network are executed by a controller and the control plane components are separate from data plane components of the split architecture network. The placement of the controller is selected to minimize disruption of the split architecture network caused by a link failure, a switch failure or a connectivity loss between the controller and the data plane components | 01-31-2013 |
20130028142 | RESILIENCY-AWARE HYBRID DESIGN OF CONTROLLER-SWITCH CONNECTIVITY IN A SPLIT-ARCHITECTURE SYSTEM - A method and apparatus for optimizing the resilience of a network using a combination of in-band and out-of-band signaling is disclosed. The metric used in the embodiment's algorithm to determine resilience is the maximum number of protected neighbors. Nodes closer to the controller are assigned a higher weight than those further from the controller because if their connection to the network is interrupted, all their downstream nodes will be affected and disconnected. Therefore, when determining a path to the controller, switches with alternate paths to the controller are preferred. Dedicated connections using out-of-band signaling are assigned to convert unprotected nodes to protected nodes thus improving the resilience of the network. | 01-31-2013 |
20130039214 | Implementing OSPF in Split-Architecture Networks - A method is implemented in a network element that functions as one of a plurality of controllers for one of a plurality of areas of a split architecture network. The controller provides a control plane for the area of the split architecture network where the controller is remote from a plurality of switches providing a data plane for the area of split architecture network. The controller facilitates optimized routing across the plurality of areas of the split architecture network by providing limited intra-area link cost data to other controllers of other areas of the split architecture network and to traditional routers of a network including the split architecture network. The limited intra-area link cost data provides costs of each possible shortest path traversal of the area of the controller without providing all internal link cost data. | 02-14-2013 |
20130054761 | Implementing a 3G Packet Core in a Cloud Computer with Openflow Data and Control Planes - A method for implementing a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunnel protocol (GTP) in a packet core (PC) of a third generation (3G) network having a split architecture where a control plane of the PC of the 3G network is in a cloud computing system, the cloud computing system including a controller, the controller to execute a plurality of control plane modules, the control plane to communicate with the data plane of the PC through a control plane protocol, the data plane implemented in a plurality of network elements of the 3G network by configuring switches implementing a data plane of the SGSN and GGSN and intermediate switches to establish a first and second GTP tunnel endpoint. | 02-28-2013 |
20130215769 | CONTROLLER PLACEMENT FOR FAST FAILOVER IN THE SPLIT ARCHITECTURE - A method implemented by a network topology design system, the network topology design system including a processing device. The method to determine placement of a controller within a network with a split architecture where control plane components of the split architecture network are executed by a controller and the control plane components are separate from data plane components of the split architecture network. The placement of the controller is selected to minimize disruption of the split architecture network caused by a link failure, a switch failure or a connectivity loss between the controller and the data plane components. | 08-22-2013 |
20130258847 | Congestion Control and Resource Allocation in Split Architecture Networks - A controller performs network-wide congestion control in a split architecture network. The controller receives flow statistics from switches for each entity that communicates via the network. The controller chooses a most congested link as a bottleneck link based on a packet loss rate that is derived from the flow statistics and estimated for each entity on each link of the network. The controller identifies a target path in the network that passes through the bottleneck link and carries the most traffic, and calculates a throttling probability for each sharing entity that shares the target path based on the capacity of the bottleneck link, capacity of the first link of the target path, bandwidth consumption and packet loss rate of each sharing entity. The controller then transmits the throttling probability of each sharing entity to the ingress switch of the target path to reduce the congestion on the bottleneck link. | 10-03-2013 |
20130294236 | CONGESTION CONTROL IN PACKET DATA NETWORKING - A network element controls congestion in a link of a packet data network. A congested link is identified and a throttle rate is determined for one or more of the traffic groups traversing the congested link. The central controller determines the throttle rates using a weight of the group and the current traffic rate of the group through the link. The throttle rates are sent to switches to throttle traffic for each affected group. | 11-07-2013 |
20140016474 | DELAYED BASED TRAFFIC RATE CONTROL IN NETWORKS WITH CENTRAL CONTROLLERS - A process is performed by a controller in a split-architecture network. The controller monitors congestion of traffic groups across the split-architecture network and executes the process to provide delay based data rate control to alleviate congestion of the traffic groups. The process includes configuring an ingress switch and egress switch for each traffic group to collect delay measurement data for data packets of each traffic group as they arrive at the ingress switch and egress switch. The delay measurement data is received from the ingress switch and egress switch of each traffic group. A check is made whether a minimum data packet delay for any traffic group exceeds a defined threshold value. A throttling rate is calculated for each traffic group in the split-architecture network, in response to the defined threshold value being exceeded. | 01-16-2014 |
20140016477 | Implementing OSPF in Split-Architecture Networks - A method is implemented in a network element that functions as one of a plurality of controllers for one of a plurality of areas of a split architecture network. The controller provides a control plane for the area of the split architecture network where the controller is remote from a plurality of switches providing a data plane for the area of split architecture network. The controller facilitates optimized routing across the plurality of areas of the split architecture network by providing limited intra-area link cost data to other controllers of other areas of the split architecture network and to traditional routers of a network including the split architecture network. The limited intra-area link cost data provides costs of each possible shortest path traversal of the area of the controller without providing all internal link cost data. | 01-16-2014 |
20140215074 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PLACING SERVICES IN A NETWORK - Embodiments of the present disclosure include a method and apparatus for placing services in a network. The network and a set of services to be placed within the network are defined. A set of requirements for a plurality of subscribers is determined. Each requirement is a sequence of services to traverse for each subscriber. The services are placed such that a total delay or total distance is minimized for all subscribers. | 07-31-2014 |
20140241247 | IMPLEMENTING A 3G PACKET CORE IN A CLOUD COMPUTER WITH OPENFLOW DATA AND CONTROL PLANES - A control plane device in a cloud computing system executes a plurality of virtual machines for implementing network function virtualization (NFV). The control plane device is operable to manage implementation of a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunnel protocol (GTP) in a packet core (PC) of a third generation (3G) network having a split architecture where a control plane of the PC of the 3G network is in the cloud computing system. The control plane communicates with a data plane of the PC through a control plane protocol. The data plane is implemented in a plurality of network devices of the 3G network. The control plane device and the plurality of virtual machines are operable to communicate with other control plane devices in the cloud computing system and with the plurality of network devices of the data plane. | 08-28-2014 |
20140241356 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR FLOW TABLE LOOKUP PARALLELIZATION IN A SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKING (SDN) SYSTEM - A method implemented in a Software Defined Networking (SDN) network for flow table lookup parallelization is disclosed. The SDN network contains at least a SDN controller and at least a forwarding element and the SDN network utilizes a plurality of flow tables to perform lookup for forwarding traffic. The method starts with determining dependency of flow tables within the forwarding element using a set of dependency determination rules. A dependency graph is then constructed based on determined dependency of flow tables. A dependency degree count for each flow table within the forwarding element is determined based on the dependency graph. Based on the dependency degree count determination for each flow table, a plurality of parallel lookup groups (PLGs) for the forwarding element is formed, where each parallel lookup group contains one or more flow tables having a same dependency degree count. | 08-28-2014 |
20140321330 | CONTROLLER PLACEMENT FOR FAST FAILOVER IN THE SPLIT ARCHITECTURE - A method implemented by a network topology design system, the network topology design system including a processing device. The method to determine placement of a controller within a network with a split architecture where control plane components of the split architecture network are executed by a controller and the control plane components are separate from data plane components of the split architecture network. The placement of the controller is selected to minimize disruption of the split architecture network caused by a link failure, a switch failure or a connectivity loss between the controller and the data plane components. | 10-30-2014 |
20140355436 | METHOD AND SYSTEM OF BANDWIDTH-AWARE SERVICE PLACEMENT FOR SERVICE CHAINING - A method implemented in a network for placing services at network devices is disclosed. The network contains a plurality of network devices and offers a set of services to subscribers. Subsets of the set of services are included in ordered service chains for subscribers. The method starts with determining a list of bandwidth consumption entities of a service for each service within the set of services, where each bandwidth consumption entity is based on one or more chains of services. Then a weight of each service is calculated based on the list of bandwidth consumption entities of the service and a service with a highest weight within the group of one or more services that have not been placed is selected. The selected service is then placed at a network device based at least partially on calculating bandwidth impacts to the network by the service. | 12-04-2014 |
20140355453 | METHOD AND ARRANGEMENT FOR FAULT ANALYSIS IN A MULTI-LAYER NETWORK - The invention relates to a method for fault analysis in a multi-layer network. The method includes receiving a first set of performance measurements occurring in response to the fault and representing at least a first and a second layer in a multi-layer communications network. A probable set of network elements affected by the fault are localized. The type of fault is inferred from one or more symptoms in the performance measurements. The root cause of the failure is determined from a combination of information on probable set of network elements and inferred type of fault. | 12-04-2014 |
20150081855 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSIGNING MULTI-INSTANCE SERVICES IN A PROVIDER NETWORK - A system and method for placing inline services having multiple instances in a service provider network. In one implementation, a topology of the service provider network and services to be placed therein are defined, wherein a network node may include a data forwarding functionality and a control plane functionality. Using service chaining policy requirements, the number of service instances, etc. as input, services and their multiple instances are placed within the network such that an overall network metric is optimized for all subscriber data flows. | 03-19-2015 |