Mobile Agent Packet Forwarding System for Switch Flow Entry Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current gateway forwarding planes face performance deterioration due to a large number of flow entries, which is not supported by the hardware, leading to inefficiencies in packet forwarding.
Innovation Solution
A packet forwarding system that includes a gateway control plane and a forwarding plane with a mobile agent, where the control plane sends user profiles to the mobile agent to dynamically generate flow entries when needed, reducing the number of flow entries stored on the switch to those actively in use.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If flow entries are established for each attached user on the forwarding plane, then user packet forwarding capability is improved, but the quantity of flow entries exceeds hardware support capacity and deteriorates forwarding plane performance
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the flow entry storage function into two parts: the forwarding plane maintains only active flow entries for current users, while the control plane maintains flow entries for all users including detached ones. This segmentation resolves the contradiction by distributing the storage burden appropriately - the forwarding plane hardware only handles essential active user forwarding, maintaining high performance, while the control plane handles complete user profile management, providing full adaptability.
2Reliability
If flow entries are maintained for all attached users on the forwarding plane, then complete user profile support is achieved, but hardware resource consumption increases and forwarding performance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the storage of complete user profiles from the forwarding plane and places it on the control plane. The forwarding plane only retains minimal flow entries for active users, while the control plane stores comprehensive user profiles including detached users. This extraction resolves the contradiction by removing the burden of maintaining complete profiles from forwarding hardware, reducing device complexity and resource consumption, while the control plane maintains reliability through complete profile support.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the quantity of flow entries on the forwarding plane is increased to meet user demands, then user coverage is improved, but there is an order of magnitude difference between flow entry quantity and hardware capacity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic flow entry management where the forwarding plane flow table size adjusts based on the number of active users rather than total users. Flow entries are dynamically added when users attach and removed when they detach, maintaining optimal forwarding plane capacity utilization. This dynamic approach resolves the contradiction by ensuring user coverage matches actual active demand, preventing the forwarding plane from being overwhelmed by static allocation for potential maximum users.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of the present invention provide a packet forwarding system. The packet forwarding system includes: a gateway control plane entity, configured to send a user profile establishment message to a mobile agent in a process of setting up a bearer, where the user profile establishment message includes a user profile of the bearer; the mobile agent, configured to store the user profile of the bearer; and a switch, configured to: after receiving a user plane packet and when no flow entry matching the user plane packet is found in a local flow table, send a flow entry request including a matching parameter in the user plane packet to the mobile agent, where the mobile agent is further configured to: after receiving the flow entry request, generate, according to the found user profile, a flow entry matching the user plane packet, and send the generated flow entry to the switch.