Intelligent Route Service Control Point for Network Traffic Balancing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current Internet routing systems, particularly BGP, lack fine-grained control and are not adequately equipped to handle sophisticated demands such as load balancing and network conditions, leading to inefficient route selection and imbalance in traffic distribution.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a logically centralized but physically distributed Intelligent Route Service Control Point (IRSCP) that uses both iBGP and eBGP to govern routing, allowing for complete visibility of all routes and enabling external information to influence route selection, thereby providing a ranking of egress links for optimal traffic distribution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If BGP routing is used with default decision process, then routing connectivity is ensured, but fine-grained route control and load balancing capability are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the route control functionality from the traditional router BGP decision process and places it in a separate Route Control Point (RCP). This allows the routing system to maintain connectivity functions while enabling fine-grained control through external route control policies, effectively separating control plane functions from forwarding functions.
Solution Approach 2:
The RCP acts as an intermediary between route policy requirements and the actual BGP routing decisions. It receives route information from routers, applies control policies, and generates route control messages that influence router behavior without requiring changes to the underlying BGP protocol or router complexity.
2Ease of operation
If BGP attributes are tuned for route control, then route selection can be influenced, but the process becomes cumbersome and vendor-specific
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of directly configuring complex BGP attributes on routers, the RCP creates simplified route control messages that copy the essential control intent. These messages are processed by the router's BGP implementation, translating high-level control policies into specific BGP attribute adjustments without requiring operators to understand vendor-specific configuration languages.
Solution Approach 2:
The RCP provides a universal route control interface that can influence BGP route selection across different router vendors and implementations. By operating at the protocol level rather than the configuration level, it achieves vendor-independent route control that simplifies operations while maintaining compatibility with diverse routing infrastructures.
3Stability of the object's composition
If route control is distributed across routers, then routing decisions are autonomous, but consistent policy enforcement across the network is difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the route control functionality into a centralized RCP that consolidates policy management for the entire network. This single point of control receives routing information from all routers, applies consistent policies uniformly, and generates coordinated control messages, ensuring policy consistency across the distributed routing infrastructure without requiring complex distributed policy management.
Solution Approach 2:
The RCP implements feedback loops by continuously monitoring BGP routing states from routers and adjusting route control messages accordingly. This closed-loop control ensures that policy enforcement remains consistent and adaptive to changing network conditions, with the RCP detecting and correcting policy violations or inconsistencies across the network.
Data Source
AI summary
A route control architecture allows a network operator to flexibly control routing between the traffic ingresses and egresses in a computer network, without modifying existing routers. An intelligent route service control point (IRSCP) replaces distributed BGP decision processes of conventional network routers with a route computation that is flexible and logically centralized but physically distributed. One embodiment supplements the traditional BGP decision process with a ranking decision process that allows route-control applications to explicitly rank traffic egresses on a per-destination, per-router basis. A straightforward set of correctness requirements prevents routing anomalies in implementations that are scalable and fault-tolerant.