Route Aggregation as a Service with Long-Lived Stale Time for WAN Routing

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Manual route aggregation in wide area networks is labor-intensive, error-prone, and can cause traffic congestion and delays due to inconsistent application of dynamic changes, failing to consider the network's dynamic state.

Innovation Solution

A Route Aggregation as a Service (RaaS) system that aggregates routing tables using a server to identify common prefixes, generating compact aggregated tables, and implements resilience measures like a Long Lived Stale Time (LLST) and mirroring to ensure consistent routing even during outages.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Quantity of substance

If manual route aggregation is performed by humans, then routing table size is reduced, but the process becomes labor intensive and error prone

Engineering Contradiction:

Improverouting table sizeVSAvoidaggregation process complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The system enables self-service through automated route aggregation where the network infrastructure itself performs the aggregation task. The route aggregator component automatically processes routing tables, identifies common prefixes, and generates aggregated routes without human intervention, making the system serve itself rather than requiring manual operation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces the mechanical manual process of route aggregation with an automated electronic system. Instead of human operators manually analyzing and aggregating routes, a computer-implemented method with a route aggregator automatically performs prefix analysis, route consolidation, and routing table generation, substituting mechanical human labor with automated computational processes.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

2Adaptability or versatility

If per-device dynamic route aggregation is implemented, then routing flexibility is improved, but consistency is compromised leading to traffic shifts

Engineering Contradiction:

Improverouting flexibilityVSAvoidrouting consistency

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges the route aggregation function into a centralized network service that operates across multiple devices. Instead of each device independently performing aggregation (which causes inconsistency), the centralized service consolidates routing information from multiple sources, performs unified aggregation, and distributes the results, combining individual device capabilities into a coordinated system-wide solution.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements feedback mechanisms where the centralized route aggregation service continuously monitors network state changes, receives updates from various routing sources, and dynamically adjusts aggregated routes based on current network conditions. This feedback loop ensures that routing decisions remain consistent with the actual network state while maintaining adaptability to changes.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

3Quantity of substance

If manual aggregation process is used, then routing table compression is achieved, but network dynamic state changes are not considered causing holes in aggregated addresses

Engineering Contradiction:

Improverouting table sizeVSAvoidresponse to network changes

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements dynamic route aggregation where the aggregation process continuously adapts to changing network conditions. The system monitors network state changes in real-time and dynamically adjusts aggregated routes accordingly, ensuring that routing tables remain compressed while accurately reflecting current network topology and avoiding address holes that would occur with static manual aggregation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

Data Source

PatentUS20250337685A1ROUTE AGGREGATION AS A SERVICE (RaaS)

Publication Date: 2025.10.30 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC

AI summary

Example solutions for providing route aggregation as a service (RaaS) are disclosed. A RaaS server receives original routing tables from routers in a wide area network (WAN), aggregates the routes by identifying common prefixes, and returns more compact aggregated routing tables to the routers. The routers use the aggregated routing tables to efficiently route data traffic in the WAN. Multiple resiliency approaches are disclosed, in order to prevent the routers from flushing the aggregated routes in the event that the RaaS server experiences an outage and the border gateway protocol (BGP session between each router and the RaaS server is lost. Example resiliency measures includes the use of a long lived stale time (LLST), reaching a length of perhaps weeks, during which the routers continue to use the aggregated routing tables, and the use of mirroring the aggregated routing tables in other RaaS