Offload Platform Adjunct for Packet Switching
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current packet switching networks face challenges in achieving high speed and capacity to support emerging technologies and increasing customer demand, as they often require significant upgrades to hardware and resources, limiting the ability to rapidly introduce new features and handle advanced forwarding capabilities.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of an offload platform adjunct to packet switching devices, which performs specific packet processing tasks, such as forwarding operations, using Vector Packet Processing (VPP) and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), allowing for the offloading of processing from the router to a compute platform, thereby enhancing forwarding capabilities without requiring full bandwidth or hardware upgrades.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If packet switching networks use traditional hardware-based processing, then network speed and capacity can be maintained, but the ability to rapidly introduce new features and advanced forwarding capabilities is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts packet processing functions from the traditional hardware-based routing platform and relocates them to a separate offload platform. This separation allows the routing platform to maintain its core forwarding capabilities while the offload platform handles advanced packet processing, enabling new features to be introduced without complicating the core hardware architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The offload platform acts as an intermediary between the routing platform and the packet processing requirements. It receives packets from the routing platform, performs advanced processing operations, and returns processed packets to the routing platform for final forwarding decisions. This intermediary architecture enables feature flexibility without impacting core routing hardware.
2Productivity
If packet switching networks upgrade hardware to support high speed and capacity, then network performance improves, but the cost and time for implementation increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the packet processing workload into two distinct parts: core forwarding operations handled by the routing platform and advanced packet processing handled by the offload platform. This segmentation allows the routing platform to operate at full speed for basic forwarding while the offload platform provides enhanced capabilities, achieving high productivity without requiring a complete hardware overhaul.
Solution Approach 2:
The offload platform is designed to perform multiple packet processing functions including filtering, policing, classification, and advanced routing operations. This multi-functional capability allows a single platform to replace what would otherwise require multiple specialized hardware upgrades, reducing both implementation time and cost while maintaining high network performance.
3Adaptability or versatility
If packet switching devices perform all packet processing tasks, then forwarding capabilities are comprehensive, but processing overhead and resource consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts resource-intensive packet processing tasks from the routing platform and relocates them to the offload platform. This extraction reduces the processing burden on the routing platform, lowering its energy consumption and resource usage, while the offload platform is specifically designed to handle these intensive operations efficiently.
Solution Approach 2:
The routing platform performs only the essential forwarding decisions with partial processing, while delegating excessive or advanced processing requirements to the offload platform. This partial action approach allows the routing platform to maintain comprehensive forwarding capabilities through collaboration while minimizing its own resource consumption by handling only critical functions.
Data Source
AI summary
In one embodiment, an offload platform is an compute platform, adjunct to a router or other packet switching device, that performs packet processing operations including determining an egress forwarding value corresponding to the next-hop node of the packet switching device to which to send an offload-platform processed packet. The offload platform downloads forwarding information from the router, and augments it, such as, but not limited to, representing interfaces of the router as identifiable virtual interface(s) on the offload platform, and including each of one or more next-hop nodes of the router represented as an identifiable virtual adjacency and identifiable tunnel (e.g., identified by the egress forwarding value). In one embodiment, the egress forwarding value is an Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) label or Segment Routing Identifier. The router identifies packets of certain packet flows to send to the adjunct offload platform, rather than processing per its routing information base.