Link Aggregation Group Shaping via Centralized Ingress Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
In network management, link aggregation groups often lead to independent shaping processes across multiple functional entities, resulting in either excessive or insufficient data transmission rates, and managing these processes across entities is challenging due to high data exchange requirements and complexities with multicast traffic and multiple switch fabrics.
Innovation Solution
A transmission control system that detects data frames and forwards them according to a link aggregation rule, maintaining a management rule to direct specific management processes to the appropriate functional entity within the network element, ensuring efficient data stream processing without dividing streams between multiple entities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If shapers are implemented independently in each functional entity comprising egress ports, then the shaping can be applied locally without coordination overhead, but the aggregate transmission rate can exceed the desired shaping rate when multiple functional entities transmit simultaneously
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the shaping control functionality from distributed functional entities to a centralized location (ingress functional entity or switch fabric) that can observe and control the entire data stream before it is distributed across multiple egress ports. This ensures that the aggregate transmission rate across all functional entities does not exceed the desired shaping rate while maintaining independent local implementation benefits.
2Manufacturing precision
If the shaping rate is set to be lower in each functional entity to prevent rate exceeding, then the aggregate rate is controlled, but the shaping becomes too restrictive during periods when data flows through only one or few functional entities
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies shaping in advance at the ingress functional entity or switch fabric before data is distributed to multiple egress ports. By controlling the data stream upstream, the system can allow each functional entity to transmit at its full capacity when needed, while the preliminary shaping ensures the aggregate rate never exceeds the target rate, eliminating the need for overly restrictive per-entity rate limits.
3Manufacturing precision
If shapers in multiple functional entities are configured to communicate with each other to coordinate shaping, then the aggregate transmission rate can be controlled accurately, but a big amount of short-delay data traffic is required between functional entities which is often not feasible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the shaping control functionality from the distributed functional entities and consolidates it at a centralized location (ingress functional entity or switch fabric). This eliminates the need for complex communication infrastructure between functional entities, as the centralized controller can manage aggregate rates using existing data stream flow without requiring additional high-speed communication channels.
4Manufacturing precision
If shaping is carried out in the switch fabric where the whole data stream is present, then the aggregate rate can be controlled accurately, but this approach is problematic with multicast traffic and requires high-rate communication between multiple switch fabrics
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces the ingress functional entity as an intermediary that performs shaping on unicast data streams before they reach the switch fabric. This intermediary approach allows accurate rate control for unicast traffic without interfering with multicast traffic handling in the switch fabric, as the ingress entity can identify and shape only the relevant unicast streams while leaving multicast traffic unaffected.
Data Source
AI summary
A transmission control system for controlling management processes, such as shaping, is presented. The management processes are directed to data streams that are parts of data traffic transmitted via a link aggregation group having egress ports in separate functional entities of a network element. For each data frame of the data traffic, it is detected whether the data frame belongs to any of the data streams. Data frames belonging to none of the data streams are forwarded so that these data frames are distributed between the functional entities according to a link aggregation rule. A management rule is maintained for indicating, for each of the data streams, a stream-specific functional entity that runs each management process directed to the data stream. Each data frame belonging to one of the data streams is forwarded to the appropriate stream-specific functional entity in accordance with the management rule.