Network Routing Flow Affinity Maintenance
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Solution Overview
Problem
The anycast technology in network routing makes it difficult to maintain flow affinity, leading to issues such as service interruption, packet loss, or traffic scattering, especially in dynamic network or computation environments like metropolitan area networks or multi-access edge computing.
Innovation Solution
A network routing method where a network node receives a data packet from a client, obtains flow affinity attribute information based on the service identifier, and establishes a flow entry to forward subsequent data packets within the same data flow, ensuring flow affinity is maintained.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If anycast technology is used for network routing, then service accessibility and load balancing are improved, but flow affinity cannot be maintained causing service interruption and packet loss
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-establishing flow affinity rules and service node mappings before data transmission occurs. The system pre-configures which service nodes should handle specific flows based on affinity requirements, so when data packets arrive, the routing decisions are already determined, maintaining both anycast flexibility and flow affinity consistency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms where the system continuously monitors data packet routing paths and service node performance. Based on this feedback, the system dynamically adjusts flow affinity mappings and routing decisions to ensure that packets belonging to the same flow are consistently directed to the same service node, preventing service interruption and packet loss while maintaining anycast benefits.
2Productivity
If anycast technology routes data packets to different service nodes, then load distribution is improved, but traffic scattering occurs causing service disruption
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by dividing traffic into distinct flow groups based on affinity requirements. Each segment is assigned to specific service nodes according to pre-established rules, ensuring that while different flow segments can be distributed to different nodes for load balancing, packets within the same segment maintain consistent routing to the same node, preventing traffic scattering.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements local quality by applying different routing strategies to different flow segments based on their specific affinity requirements. Rather than applying a uniform routing policy, the system tailors routing decisions to local flow characteristics, allowing load distribution across multiple nodes while maintaining traffic consistency within each flow segment through node-specific routing rules.
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes receiving, by a network node, a first data packet from a client, wherein the first data packet includes an identifier of a service. The method further includes obtaining, by the network node, flow affinity attribute information of the service based on the identifier of the service, wherein the flow affinity attribute information of the service includes a flow affinity type of the service and a flow affinity timeout time of the service. The method further includes establishing, by the network node, a flow entry based on the flow affinity attribute information of the service in response to the first data packet being a 1st data packet in a data flow, wherein the flow entry is useable to forward a subsequent data packet in the data flow.