External Processing System for Router Backpressure Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional routers are limited in their ability to perform operations beyond stateless forwarding due to a lack of general-purpose computing resources, restricting their capacity for tasks like network address translation, deep packet inspection, and secure encryption, which requires additional hardware or network function virtualization, introducing complexity and cost.
Innovation Solution
An external processing system is used in conjunction with a dedicated router, where the router generates an operating system and hypervisor for the external processing system, allowing it to perform general-purpose computing tasks, and provides feedback through a shim layer to maintain quality of service and avoid packet loss.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If additional general-purpose computing resources are incorporated into the router, then the router's ability to perform operations like network address translation, deep packet inspection, and secure encryption is improved, but the device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the router functionality into a dedicated routing component and a separate external processing system. The router handles stateless forwarding operations while the external system performs general-purpose computing tasks through virtual machines, thereby improving versatility without increasing router hardware complexity
Solution Approach 2:
An external processing system acts as an intermediary between the router and the network. This intermediary provides general-purpose computing resources for tasks like network address translation and deep packet inspection, allowing the router to maintain its simple, high-performance architecture while still delivering enhanced functionality
2Adaptability or versatility
If additional general-purpose computing resources are incorporated into the router, then the router's ability to perform operations like network address translation, deep packet inspection, and secure encryption is improved, but the cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts general-purpose computing resources from the router itself and places them in a separate external processing system. This extraction allows the router to be manufactured with simpler, more cost-effective hardware while still providing enhanced computing capabilities through the external system running virtual machines
Solution Approach 2:
The external processing system provides universal computing resources that can perform multiple functions (network address translation, deep packet inspection, secure encryption, video transcoding, etc.) through different virtual machines, replacing the need for multiple specialized hardware components and reducing overall system cost
3Adaptability or versatility
If the router performs stateful processing operations, then the router's ability to track and use information from previously received packets is improved, but the routing performance and forwarding capacity are degraded
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments processing tasks by routing capability. The router is dedicated to high-speed stateless forwarding operations that maximize routing capacity, while stateful processing operations are handled by virtual machines in the external processing system, thereby maintaining high routing performance while enabling stateful processing capabilities
4Device complexity
If the router shares computing resources for both routing and general-purpose functions, then the need for additional hardware is reduced, but the availability of resources for routing functionality is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments resources into dedicated routing resources in the router and general-purpose computing resources in the external processing system. This segmentation ensures that routing resources are always available for high-performance forwarding while general-purpose resources can be dynamically allocated to different virtual machines based on processing needs
Solution Approach 2:
The external processing system acts as an intermediary that provides general-purpose computing resources without interfering with the router's dedicated routing resources. This intermediary approach ensures that routing functionality maintains full resource availability while still accessing enhanced computing capabilities when needed
Data Source
AI summary
An external processing system includes a port configured to exchange signals with a router and one or more processors configured to instantiate an operating system and a hypervisor based on information provided by the router in response to the external processing system being connected to the router. The processors implement a user plane layer that generates feedback representative of a processing load and provides the feedback to the router via the port. The router includes a port allocated to an external processing system and a controller that provides the information representing the operating system and hypervisor in response to connection of the external processing system. The controller also receives feedback indicating a processing load at the external processing system. A queue holds packets prior to providing the packets to the external processing system. The controller discards one or more of the packets from the queue based on the feedback.