Overlay-Underlay Service API for Tunnel Mapping Agility
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing network technologies fail to effectively address the integration of network services by coupling the control and data planes in existing technologies, leading to a lack of communication of network service intent between overlay and underlay networks, which hinders automated service consumption and service agility.
Innovation Solution
A client-server semantic API is introduced to enable overlay network tunnels to be mapped to specific predefined services or paths in the transport layer using attachment metadata, allowing for a loosely-coupled model that shields the client from implementation details and facilitates simple integration of service provider transport services.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If protocol-based interworking is used to enable service consumption, then control and data planes are strongly coupled, but service intent communication between overlay and underlay networks is achieved
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the service consumption mechanism into separate control plane operations (service discovery via API calls) and data plane operations (packet forwarding based on pre-established mappings). This allows the control plane to communicate service intent through standardized API requests while the data plane handles actual traffic routing independently, reducing the strong coupling between planes while maintaining reliable service intent communication.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary service discovery mechanism that uses application programming interfaces (APIs) as mediators between overlay and underlay networks. This intermediary layer enables service intent to be communicated through standardized requests without requiring direct protocol-based coupling between control and data planes, thus resolving the contradiction between communication reliability and plane coupling complexity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If human processing is used to map services to underlay network services, then service intent can be understood, but service consumption automation is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables service consumers to autonomously discover and map services to underlay network services through automated API-based service discovery mechanisms. The system performs self-service by automatically interpreting service intent from attachment metadata and establishing corresponding network mappings without human intervention, thus achieving both service intent understanding and automated service consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual human processing with automated mechanical systems - specifically, programmatic API calls and automated mapping mechanisms. This substitution allows the system to automatically interpret service intent from metadata and establish network service mappings, eliminating the need for human operators while maintaining adaptability to different service types.
3Ease of manufacture
If overlay networks directly consume underlay services without semantic interfaces, then integration is simpler, but service differentiation and policy control are limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a universal semantic interface layer in the form of standardized application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable overlay networks to consume various underlay services through a common mechanism. This universal interface provides multi-functionality by supporting different service types (transport, security, bandwidth guarantees) while maintaining simple integration through a unified service discovery and mapping approach.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables service differentiation by allowing parameter changes in the attachment metadata that describes service requirements. By modifying metadata parameters such as bandwidth, latency requirements, or security levels, overlay networks can request different underlay service characteristics while maintaining the same basic integration mechanism, thus achieving both ease of integration and service differentiation.
Data Source
AI summary
A device transmits, from an overlay service controller associated with an overlay network to an underlay service controller associated with an underlay network and via a semantic structure defined for a service usage API, a request for a service offered by the underlay network. A device may receive, at the overlay service controller, from the underlay service controller and via the service usage API, attachment metadata. A device may map, based on the attachment metadata and via the overlay service controller, an overlay network tunnel to the service in the underlay network to generate an overlay tunnel mapping, wherein the overlay service controller does not have knowledge of details about implementing the service in order to enable the overlay network to consume the service offered by the underlay network. A device may communicate tunneled packets from the overlay network to the underlay network via the overlay tunnel mapping.