Dynamic Service Placement for Network Latency Minimization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing service chaining technologies face inefficiencies in routing traffic through multiple inline services, leading to suboptimal performance and scalability issues, as they often require predetermined service orders and are not flexible enough to adapt to varying subscriber needs, resulting in increased latency and capital expenditures.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for placing services at network devices that selects optimal locations based on utilization, ordering services from most to least utilized to minimize additional delay, and updates paths to insert services with minimal latency, allowing for flexible service ordering and efficient traffic steering without predetermined service sequences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If services are placed on network devices using existing service chaining technologies, then traffic can be routed through multiple inline services, but the performance is suboptimal and latency increases due to predetermined service orders and lack of flexibility
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic service placement where the service chain order is not predetermined but determined at runtime based on current network conditions and subscriber requirements. The service chain manager dynamically constructs service chains by selecting services and determining their order based on real-time parameters, allowing the system to adapt to changing conditions and minimize latency for each subscriber.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of service chain ordering from fixed/predetermined to variable/dynamic. By allowing the service order to be determined based on current network state, subscriber preferences, and service characteristics rather than following a predetermined sequence, the system optimizes performance and reduces latency adaptively.
2Adaptability or versatility
If services are placed on network devices with predetermined service orders, then traffic routing is simplified, but adaptability to varying subscriber needs decreases and capital expenditures increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a service chain manager as an intermediary component that handles the complexity of dynamic service placement and ordering. This mediator receives service placement requests, determines optimal service chains based on multiple factors including subscriber preferences and network conditions, and coordinates the placement of services on network devices. By centralizing this intelligence, the system achieves high adaptability without proportionally increasing overall system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary analysis and planning by the service chain manager before actual service placement. It pre-evaluates multiple service chain options, predicts performance outcomes, and determines the optimal service order in advance of traffic flow, allowing for adaptive configurations without adding runtime complexity to the actual traffic steering operations.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for placing services at network devices is disclosed. A network contains a plurality of network devices and the network offers a set of services to subscribers. Each subscriber of the network utilizes a subset of the set of service, where an order of the services is not predefined. The method starts with ordering the services from the most utilized service to the least utilized, and selects services from the most utilized to the least utilized. For each service, a network device is selected so that placing the service adds a least sum of additional delay based on services already placed in the network, and a path for each subscriber utilizing the service is updated to include the service, where the path is an ordered chain of services, and where the service is inserted in the path to result in minimum addition to delay to the subscriber.