Selective Network Address Storage in Switch Forwarding Tables
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Solution Overview
Problem
As the number of devices on a network increases, network devices like switches require increasingly larger amounts of physical memory to store forwarding tables, leading to potential memory overflow and network congestion, as they must store all network addresses indiscriminately.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a method where a management device determines which network devices are involved in workload-related traffic and only stores network addresses for those devices, reducing the size of forwarding tables by selectively storing addresses based on traffic relevance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If network devices store all network addresses indiscriminately in forwarding tables, then network coverage and device connectivity are improved, but physical memory requirements increase leading to memory overflow and network congestion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the necessary network addresses (those involved in workload-related traffic) from the complete set of network addresses and stores them selectively in forwarding tables. This reduces memory usage by removing unnecessary address entries while maintaining network functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different storage policies to different network addresses based on their relevance to workload traffic. Addresses involved in workload traffic are stored in forwarding tables, while addresses not involved are excluded, creating a differentiated quality of address storage across the network device.
2Adaptability or versatility
If network devices store larger forwarding tables to accommodate more devices, then network capacity increases, but device complexity and upgrade frequency increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and stores only the subset of network addresses that are relevant to workload traffic, rather than storing all possible addresses. This reduces forwarding table size and associated device complexity while maintaining adequate network capacity for actual workloads.
3Reliability
If network devices store all network addresses to prevent network congestion, then traffic routing reliability is improved, but memory usage increases causing overflow
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and stores only the critical network addresses involved in workload traffic in the forwarding tables. This selective storage maintains reliable traffic routing for actual workloads while preventing memory overflow by excluding unnecessary addresses.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial action by storing only the necessary portion of network addresses (those involved in workload traffic) rather than all addresses. This partial storage is sufficient to maintain routing reliability for actual workloads while avoiding memory overflow.
Data Source
AI summary
Network devices, like switches, selectively store network addresses of data packets received at their interfaces within forwarding tables. A management device determines workload devices related to a workload. The management device determines the network devices through which network traffic related to the workload among the workload devices traverses, and the network devices through which network traffic related to the workload among the workload devices does not traverse. The management device causes each network device to store or not store the network addresses of the workload devices depending on whether network traffic among the workload device traverses therethrough.