Flow-Based Session Drain Director for Network Port Maintenance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing load balancing systems face disruptions during maintenance of network resources, as simply disconnecting resources can lead to session disruptions, and traditional methods require costly individual flow tracking and additional infrastructure for graceful failover.
Innovation Solution
Replicate connections from a port to be decommissioned to a backup port, configure access control to prevent new connections on the original port, and use load balancing processes to distribute load across multiple backup paths, allowing for graceful failover without additional infrastructure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If network resources are disconnected from the network during maintenance, then maintenance operations can be performed, but session disruptions occur
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by replicating connections to backup ports before decommissioning the original port. This ensures that traffic can be seamlessly redirected to backup paths, maintaining session continuity during maintenance operations without disrupting ongoing communications
Solution Approach 2:
Backup ports serve as intermediary elements that mediate between the network traffic and the maintenance operation. By introducing these intermediate backup paths, the system can perform maintenance on original ports while keeping sessions active through the backup intermediaries
2Reliability
If individual flow tracking is implemented to prevent session disruptions, then session continuity is maintained, but system complexity and traffic throughput degradation increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of tracking individual flows, the system creates copies of connections at the port level. By replicating entire connection groups to backup ports, the system avoids the complexity of tracking and managing individual flow states while still ensuring session continuity through the backup copies
3Reliability
If additional load balancers are deployed to enable graceful failover, then session continuity is maintained, but infrastructure cost and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
Existing backup ports are made multi-functional by enabling them to serve both as regular load-bearing ports and as failover backup ports simultaneously. This universal usage eliminates the need for dedicated backup infrastructure, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining session continuity capabilities
4Reliability
If connections are replicated to backup ports, then session continuity is maintained during maintenance, but load distribution may be affected
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts load distribution by monitoring the state of original and backup ports. When original ports are active, they handle the primary load; when maintenance is performed, load automatically shifts to backup ports. This dynamic adaptation maintains both session continuity and efficient load distribution without manual intervention
Data Source
AI summary
To accommodate graceful offloading of connections from a port of a network element, thereby allowing the port to be decommissioned, both existing and new connections allocated to that port according to a load balancing protocol are replicated on a backup port. Thereafter, or concurrently therewith, the port is configured to drop acknowledgements of the new connections, and the port is monitored so as to eventually identify an absence of connections thereon. At that time, the port may be decommissioned inasmuch as all new connections will have been established on the backup port and no previously existing connections on the original port will remain.