SDN Controller Assisted Replication Nexthop Management
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current technologies face challenges in scaling Broadcast, Unknown-Unicast, and Multicast (BUM) traffic forwarding to Top-Of-Rack (TOR) switches and Virtual Machines (VMs) within a single environment, leading to poor scalability due to excessive nexthop additions in multicast routing.
Innovation Solution
An SDN controller determines whether multicast routes are assisted replication routes and only adds corresponding nexthops to the list for BUM traffic, refraining from adding nexthops for non-assisted replication routes, thereby optimizing nexthop management and improving scalability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the SDN controller adds all multicast route nexthops to the BUM traffic forwarding list, then complete multicast routing coverage is achieved, but the number of nexthops increases excessively reducing scalability
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments multicast routing into two distinct paths: assisted replication routes for BUM traffic forwarding and non-assisted replication routes for other purposes. The SDN controller identifies and separates assisted replication routes by checking route attributes, adding only these segmented routes to the BUM traffic forwarding list, thereby reducing the total number of nexthops while maintaining necessary coverage
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts only the necessary subset of multicast routes (assisted replication routes) from the complete set of multicast routes and adds them to the BUM traffic forwarding list. This extraction process removes unnecessary nexthops that would otherwise bloat the forwarding list, improving scalability while preserving essential multicast functionality
2Productivity
If assisted replication routes are selectively added to BUM traffic forwarding, then scalability is improved, but route determination complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-configuring multicast routes with distinct attributes that identify them as assisted replication routes. The SDN controller uses these pre-established attributes to quickly determine whether to add a route to the BUM traffic forwarding list, avoiding complex real-time analysis and simplifying the determination process while maintaining scalability
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
A software defined networking (SDN) controller is configured to receive, from a Top-Of-Rack (TOR) switch, a first multicast route and a second multicast route. In response to determining that the first multicast route is an assisted replication route, the SDN controller is configured to add a first nexthop specified by the first multicast route to a list of nexthops for Broadcast, Unknown-Unicast, and Multicast (BUM) traffic. In response to determining that the second multicast route is not the assisted replication route, the SDN controller is configured to refrain from adding a second nexthop specified by the second multicast route to the list of nexthops. After adding the first nexthop, the SDN controller is configured to provision the list of nexthops at a virtual router.