Service Mesh TCP Access to Non-Routable Endpoints
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Solution Overview
Problem
In decentralized service meshes, establishing TCP connections to non-routable remote endpoints is challenging due to the inability to resolve hostnames to IP addresses, especially when DNS lookups fail or non-unique IP addresses are used, leading to connectivity issues.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a connectivity management service that maintains associations between unique identifiers and connectivity information for remote endpoints, and using a connectivity abstraction layer to intercept DNS requests, generate unique IP addresses, and establish connections using these identifiers, allowing seamless communication through a decentralized service mesh.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If DNS lookup is used to resolve hostname to IP address, then connectivity to remote endpoints can be established, but DNS lookup fails for non-routable hostnames in decentralized service meshes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a connectivity abstraction layer service as an intermediary between microservices and remote endpoints. This service intercepts DNS requests for non-routable hostnames, generates synthetic IP addresses, and manages the mapping between hostnames and IP addresses. The intermediary resolves the contradiction by providing hostname resolution functionality without relying on traditional DNS lookup, enabling connectivity to non-routable endpoints while maintaining ease of operation through familiar hostname-based access.
2Adaptability or versatility
If unique IP addresses are generated for non-routable endpoints, then TCP connections can be established, but traditional IP addressing cannot identify publicly-addressable computers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the addressing space by introducing a dedicated synthetic IP address range specifically for non-routable remote endpoints within the decentralized service mesh. This segmentation allows the system to generate unique IP addresses for internal endpoints without conflicting with public IP address space, enabling TCP connections to non-routable endpoints while preserving the distinction between internal and external addressability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of IP address assignability by generating synthetic IP addresses that are unique within the system but deliberately non-routable externally. This parameter change enables the system to provide unique identification for each remote endpoint while maintaining the property that these addresses cannot be routed to publicly-addressable computers, thus resolving the contradiction between endpoint accessibility and public addressability information.
3Ease of operation
If a connectivity abstraction layer is implemented to manage unique identifiers and IP addresses, then seamless connectivity is achieved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the complexity of hostname resolution and IP address management from individual microservices and centralizes it in a dedicated connectivity abstraction layer service. This service handles all DNS request interception, synthetic IP address generation, and hostname-to-IP mapping. By taking out these complex functions from the distributed microservice architecture and consolidating them in a single intermediary service, the system achieves seamless connectivity management while containing the complexity in a manageable, centralized component.
Data Source
AI summary
A system can maintain, by a connectivity management service, associations between unique identifiers for remote endpoints and connectivity information of the remote endpoints. The system can, based on receiving, by a connectivity abstraction layer and from a microservice, a unique identifier, return, to the microservice, an internet protocol (IP) address that is unique within the system, wherein the IP address fails to identify a publicly-addressable computer, and store an association between the unique identifier and the IP address. The system can, based on receiving, by the connectivity abstraction layer and from the microservice, a request to access a remote endpoint of the remote endpoints that is identified by the IP address, identify the unique identifier from the IP address, determine, from the connectivity management service, connectivity information of the respective connectivity information, based on the unique identifier, and establish a connection with the remote endpoint using the connectivity information.