Network Traffic Shifting via Phased Pre-Check and Post-Shift Verification
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for shifting traffic away from network devices, such as routers, lack efficiency and safety, particularly during maintenance or updates, as they often rely solely on adjusting routing configuration without ensuring network stability, which can lead to detrimental effects on overall network functionality.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a phased approach including identification, discovery, pre-checks, shifting, and post-checks to safely redirect traffic away from network devices by modifying routing configuration information, ensuring network stability and resource availability before and after the shift.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If routing configuration information is adjusted to shift traffic away from network devices, then traffic redirection is achieved, but network stability may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs pre-checks before shifting traffic to verify network stability and resource availability. This includes checking network topology consistency, verifying alternative paths exist, and confirming sufficient bandwidth capacity before modifying routing configuration, thereby preventing destabilization of the network during traffic redirection
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs post-checks after traffic shifting to verify that network stability is maintained and traffic has been successfully redirected. This feedback mechanism allows the system to detect and correct any issues that arise during or after the traffic shift, ensuring network reliability is preserved
2Ease of operation
If manual traffic shifting methods are used, then flexibility in maintenance operations is maintained, but efficiency and safety of traffic redirection deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically performs discovery, pre-checks, traffic shifting, and post-checks without requiring manual intervention at each step. The automated workflow efficiently manages the entire traffic redirection process, reducing operational time and minimizing human error while maintaining the flexibility to perform maintenance operations as needed
3Device complexity
If routing configuration is modified without verifying network capacity, then traffic shifting is simplified, but network functionality may be detrimentally affected
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs comprehensive pre-checks including network topology verification and resource capacity assessment before modifying routing configuration. This ensures that alternative paths exist and have sufficient bandwidth to handle the redirected traffic, preventing network functionality degradation while maintaining a streamlined configuration process
Data Source
AI summary
A traffic shifting system is described to shift traffic away from one or more network devices or interfaces on those devices. The system ensures that traffic can be safely shifted off of a network device before the shifting occurs. The method is described as broken into several phases for simplicity, such as a discovery phase, a pre-check phase, a shifting phase, and a post-shift phase. Before shifting occurs, the discovery phase is used to obtain network topology and configuration information. In the pre-check phase, that information is interrogated so that a shifting can be performed without negatively impacting the network. If the pre-check phase is passed, then the network shifting can occur through adjustment of configuration parameters, such as a cost parameter. Finally, in the post-shift phase, checks are performed to ensure traffic is shifting away from the network device.