CDN DNS Traffic Steering for Low-Latency Cloud Region Routing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing techniques for steering network traffic to regions of a cloud computing system separately control direct and indirect paths using different mechanisms, leading to uncoordinated request load shifts, increased cloud resources requirements, and potential points of failure, without effectively minimizing overall latency.
Innovation Solution
Implementing authoritative DNS nameservers on a CDN infrastructure, where each server appliance acts as both an edge server and DNS nameserver, aligning load steering between direct and indirect paths, and using optimization to assign servers to regions based on latency measurements, ensuring constrained traffic deviations and reduced cloud capacity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If separate mechanisms are used to control direct and indirect traffic paths, then each path can be independently managed, but request loads shift uncoordinated between cloud regions and multiple points of failure are introduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the control of direct and indirect traffic paths into a single unified mechanism. The optimization application centrally coordinates request load steering for both direct paths (via DNS responses) and indirect paths (via CDN proxy servers), ensuring coherent and coordinated traffic distribution across cloud regions rather than independent control of each path type
2Adaptability or versatility
If separate mechanisms control direct and indirect paths, then implementation flexibility is maintained, but cloud resources headroom must be increased to account for traffic shifts
Solution Approach 1:
By combining control of direct and indirect paths into a unified optimization system, the patent eliminates the need for separate resource allocation strategies. The single optimization application coordinates traffic steering for both path types, allowing cloud resources to be sized more efficiently without requiring additional headroom to accommodate uncoordinated traffic shifts
3Ease of operation
If geographical traffic steering is used based on recursive resolver location, then traffic distribution is simplified, but latency is not effectively minimized
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms where the optimization application receives latency measurements from probes and uses this information to dynamically adjust traffic steering decisions. The system continuously monitors actual latency performance and modifies DNS responses and CDN proxy assignments to minimize overall client application latency, moving beyond static geographical rules to adaptive, measurement-driven traffic distribution
Data Source
AI summary
In various embodiments, domain name system (DNS) servers are implemented on a content distribution network (CDN) infrastructure in order to facilitate centralized control of traffic steering. Each server appliance in the CDN infrastructure acts as both an authoritative DNS nameserver and a dynamic request proxy, and each such server appliance is assigned to one of multiple cloud computing system regions. The assignment of server appliances to cloud regions is based on latency measurements collected via client application probes and an optimization that minimizes an overall latency experienced by the client applications subject to constraints that the maximum traffic to each cloud region is less than a capacity constraint for that region, the maximum deviation of traffic to each cloud regions at any point in time is less than a given percentage, and the maximum deviation of traffic between direct and indirect paths is less than a given percentage.