Preserving Congestion Metadata in Virtual Overlay Network Tunneling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Network congestion notification capabilities in virtual overlay networks are not effectively preserved or modified during transmission through underlying physical networks, rendering them useless as the metadata is either hidden or stripped away during encapsulation and decapsulation processes.
Innovation Solution
The method involves encapsulating and decapsulating virtual overlay network data packets within physical network data packets while copying and modifying congestion notification metadata at switching devices, ensuring that this metadata is preserved and updated across the boundary between virtual and physical networks, allowing for effective congestion management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If data packets are encapsulated within tunneling data packets for transmission through physical networks, then virtual network data can be transmitted over physical infrastructure, but congestion notification metadata is hidden or stripped away during the encapsulation process
Solution Approach 1:
The patent copies congestion notification metadata from the inner virtual network data packet header to the outer tunneling data packet header during encapsulation. This copying mechanism ensures that congestion notification information is preserved and transmitted through the physical network without being lost during the encapsulation process, resolving the information loss problem while maintaining virtual network transmission capability
Solution Approach 2:
The tunneling data packet serves as an intermediary carrier that transports both the virtual network data and its congestion notification metadata through the physical network. The metadata acts as a mediator that conveys congestion information from the virtual network layer to the physical network layer and back, enabling congestion management across network boundaries
2Reliability
If congestion notification metadata is copied to tunneling data packet headers, then congestion information is preserved during transmission, but the complexity of the encapsulation and decapsulation process increases
Solution Approach 1:
The switching device performs preliminary actions by copying the congestion notification metadata from the inner packet header to the outer tunneling packet header during the encapsulation process, before the data packet enters the physical network. This preliminary copying ensures that congestion information is preserved without requiring complex real-time processing during transmission
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of adding complex congestion management logic to the tunneling protocol itself, the patent inverts the approach by preserving the existing congestion notification metadata from the virtual network packet and transporting it through the tunnel. This inversion simplifies the solution by leveraging existing metadata structures rather than creating new complex mechanisms
Data Source
AI summary
A virtual network is implemented on a physical network. A virtual network data packet is tunneled through the physical network via encapsulation within a physical network data packet and via transmission of the physical network data packet through the physical network. A network congestion notification capability of the virtual network is preserved and modified during transmission of virtual network data through the physical network and vice-versa. Congestion notification metadata can be copied from a header of a virtual network data packet to a header of a physical network data packet when the virtual network data packet is encapsulated into the physical network data packet. Congestion notification metadata can be copied from a header of a physical network data packet to a header of a virtual network data packet when the virtual network data packet is decapsulated from the physical network data packet.