Elastic Outbound Gateway for Cloud Traffic Management

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Solution Overview

Problem

Cloud computing infrastructure lacks effective techniques for flexible and fault-tolerant outbound gateway protection, particularly in handling varying traffic loads and network interruptions, which is crucial for ensuring continuous and secure operations.

Innovation Solution

A system comprising worker gateways and load balancer gateways within virtual private clouds, where worker gateways receive configuration data from a controller gateway, provide network firewall protection, and load balancer gateways distribute client requests and traffic, with mechanisms for fault tolerance and load balancing to ensure flexible and secure outbound traffic management.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If a single outbound gateway is used in cloud infrastructure, then the system structure is simple, but the system lacks fault tolerance and cannot handle varying traffic loads flexibly

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvefault toleranceVSAvoidgateway structure
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The outbound gateway is segmented into multiple worker gateways that can be independently provisioned and managed. Each worker gateway handles specific portions of traffic, allowing the system to scale and maintain fault tolerance without requiring a complete restructuring of the gateway architecture.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

A controller gateway is introduced as an intermediary component that manages worker gateways and load balancer gateways. This controller coordinates traffic distribution, health monitoring, and dynamic provisioning, enabling fault tolerance and load balancing while maintaining manageable system complexity through centralized control.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Productivity

If multiple worker gateways are provisioned to handle varying traffic loads, then the load handling capability is improved, but the system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveload handling capabilityVSAvoidgateway management
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The worker gateway infrastructure is made dynamic through on-demand provisioning and automatic scaling capabilities. Worker gateways can be automatically created or removed based on traffic load conditions, allowing the system to adapt productivity to实际需求 while the controller manages the complexity of dynamic resource allocation.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The controller gateway implements feedback mechanisms by monitoring traffic patterns, worker gateway health status, and load conditions. Based on this feedback, the controller dynamically adjusts worker gateway provisioning and traffic distribution, enabling high productivity while managing complexity through data-driven automated decisions.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

3Adaptability or versatility

If load balancer gateways are used to distribute traffic among worker gateways, then the flexibility and fault tolerance are improved, but the system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvetraffic distribution flexibilityVSAvoidgateway architecture
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The load balancer gateway is designed with multi-functionality, serving as both a traffic distribution point and a coordination node with the controller. It implements multiple functions including health checking, session persistence, and dynamic load balancing algorithms, providing adaptability while consolidating complexity into a specialized component.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

4Reliability

If worker gateways continuously monitor and report status information, then the fault detection capability is improved, but the communication overhead increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvefault detection capabilityVSAvoidcommunication overhead
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of energy

Solution Approach 1:

Worker gateways implement periodic health status reporting to the controller rather than continuous monitoring. Status updates are sent at intervals or triggered by specific events, enabling effective fault detection while reducing communication overhead and energy consumption compared to continuous real-time monitoring.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #19Periodic action

Data Source

PatentUS10686758B2Elastic outbound gateway
Publication Date: 2020.06.16 SOPHOS LTD
  • US10686758B2 patent drawing
  • US10686758B2 patent drawing
  • US10686758B2 patent drawing

AI summary

In general, in an aspect, a method for providing an outbound gateway protection includes provisioning one or more worker gateways located in a first gateway virtual private cloud, the one or more worker gateways sharing configuration data with the controller gateway, provisioning one or more load balancer gateways in one or more client virtual clouds, the one or more client virtual clouds each comprising one or more clients, the one or more load balancer gateways distributing client requests among the worker gateways, assigning groups of the one or more clients to one of the one or more load balancer gateways based on requests from a majority of the worker gateways, and communicating outbound network traffic from the clients via the assigned load balancer gateways.