Flow Ownership Routing in High-Availability Network Pairs

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Solution Overview

Problem

In traditional network environments, high availability network device pairs process bidirectional traffic inefficiently, leading to duplication of effort and potential processing with insufficient data due to each device handling packets from the same flow independently.

Innovation Solution

Implement a method and system to assign each flow to a single high availability network device within a pair, maintaining pre-assigned or dynamically determined ownership, using mechanisms like VRRP, load balancing, or hash functions to ensure consistent processing by a designated device.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If each high availability network device processes packets from the same flow independently, then fault tolerance and load distribution are achieved, but processing efficiency deteriorates due to duplication of effort and insufficient data

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvefault toleranceVSAvoidprocessing efficiency

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the flow processing function by assigning ownership of each flow to a specific high availability network device. This segmentation allows one device to handle all packets of a given flow while the other device handles different flows, eliminating redundant processing while maintaining fault tolerance through the ownership assignment mechanism

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism (ownership assignment using VRRP, load balancing, or hash functions) that determines which device processes which flow. This intermediary layer coordinates between the two high availability devices to ensure consistent flow processing without requiring both devices to independently process every packet

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Productivity

If each high availability network device processes packets independently, then device utilization is improved, but data consistency deteriorates due to processing with insufficient data

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedevice utilizationVSAvoiddata consistency

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies preliminary action by pre-assigning flow ownership to specific devices before packet processing occurs. This pre-assignment ensures that all packets of a given flow are consistently processed by the same device, maintaining data consistency while achieving good device utilization through balanced flow distribution

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS12476911B2Mechanism to manage bidirectional traffic for high availability network devices

Publication Date: 2025.11.18 ARISTA NETWORKS INC

AI summary

A method for obtaining, by a first network device of a pair of network devices, a packet, wherein the packet specifies a source address corresponding to a first client device and a destination address corresponding to a second client device, making a first determination, by the first network device and using the source address and the destination address, that the first network device is not an owner of bidirectional traffic associated with the packet, based on the first determination, transmitting, by the first network device, the packet to a second network device of the pair of network devices, making a second determination, by the second network device, that the second network device is the owner of bidirectional traffic associated with the packet, performing, in response to the second determination and by the second network device, data processing on the packet to generate a processing result.