Network Element LAG Table Steering Bidirectional Traffic
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current network configurations require dedicated links and additional communication between service devices to steer bidirectional network traffic, which can be inefficient and increase computational time.
Innovation Solution
The method involves a network element that processes MAC frames to derive a hash key, identifying a network interface to bridge the frames to a pair of service devices, ensuring bidirectional traffic is steered to the same service device by synchronizing LAG tables across these devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If dedicated links are used between service devices to carry network traffic, then traffic steering reliability is improved, but device complexity and network configuration complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the traffic steering logic from the service devices themselves and relocates it to the network switches. The switches maintain LAG tables that directly map traffic flows to specific service device instances, eliminating the need for service devices to participate in steering decisions and reducing their configuration complexity while maintaining reliable traffic steering.
Solution Approach 2:
The network switches act as intermediaries between the network traffic and service devices. The switches use LAG tables to mediate the routing decisions, determining which service device instance should handle each traffic flow based on the table lookups, thereby shielding service devices from complex steering logic while ensuring reliable traffic delivery.
2Measurement precision
If additional communication between service devices is implemented for traffic steering, then traffic distribution accuracy is improved, but computational time and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The LAG tables are pre-populated with traffic flow to service device mappings before traffic steering is needed. When traffic arrives at the network switch, the switch simply performs a table lookup to determine the destination service device, eliminating the need for real-time communication or complex calculations between service devices and significantly reducing processing time while maintaining accurate traffic distribution.
3Measurement precision
If service devices maintain separate state information for bidirectional traffic, then traffic handling accuracy is improved, but device complexity and synchronization requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the state information for bidirectional traffic flows into a single service device instance using LAG table mappings. Both directions of traffic for a given flow are steered to the same service device through the LAG table, eliminating the need for separate state maintenance and synchronization between multiple service devices, thereby reducing complexity while preserving accurate traffic handling.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system for steering bidirectional network traffic to a same service device. Specifically, the disclosed method and system entail the maintaining and synchronization of link aggregation group (LAG) tables tied to a pair of LAG ports instantiated on a network element directly connected to a pair of peer linking service devices. Network traffic (i.e., MAC frames) arriving at the network element, from a first host and intended for a second host (e.g., indicative of a first direction of the network traffic), may be steered towards one of the pair of service devices based on hashing of information included in a received MAC frame in conjunction with the LAG table tied to the LAG port (of the pair of LAG ports) that which received the MAC frame.