Traffic Shifting via Multi-Phase Pre-Checks and Post-Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for shifting traffic away from network devices, such as routers, lack efficiency and can cause network disruptions due to the lack of systematic techniques for ensuring safe traffic rerouting during maintenance or updates, potentially leading to detrimental impacts on network functionality.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a multi-phase process including identification, discovery, pre-checks, shifting, and post-checks to safely reroute traffic by modifying routing configuration information, ensuring network stability and resource availability before and after the shift, using a server computer to manage the process and handle various network protocols like OSPF and BGP.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If manual traffic shifting is performed without systematic techniques, then network maintenance can be conducted, but network disruptions and functional impacts occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements pre-checks before traffic shifting to verify network capacity, topology consistency, and routing feasibility. This preliminary action ensures that the network can withstand the traffic shift without causing disruptions or functional failures, thereby resolving the contradiction between ease of traffic shifting and network stability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent incorporates post-checks after traffic shifting to verify that traffic has been successfully rerouted and network functionality is maintained. This feedback mechanism allows for real-time monitoring and adjustment, ensuring network stability while enabling easy traffic shifting operations.
2Productivity
If routing configuration information is modified to shift traffic, then traffic can be rerouted away from network devices, but network disruptions may occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs pre-checks before modifying routing configuration to ensure that alternative paths exist and can handle the traffic load. This preliminary verification prevents network disruptions while maintaining efficient traffic shifting by ensuring the network is ready for the configuration changes.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements pre-checks that verify network capacity and topology before traffic shifting occurs. These pre-checks act as a cushion by identifying potential issues in advance and preventing configuration changes that could cause network disruptions, thus protecting network stability while enabling efficient traffic rerouting.
3Reliability
If systematic multi-phase process is implemented for traffic shifting, then network stability is maintained, but process complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the traffic shifting process into distinct phases: pre-checks, traffic shifting, and post-checks. This segmentation makes the complex process more manageable and systematic, ensuring network stability at each phase while reducing overall complexity through structured execution.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements pre-checks as a preliminary phase that verifies network readiness before traffic shifting occurs. This preliminary action simplifies the overall process by ensuring all necessary conditions are met in advance, reducing the complexity of executing traffic shifting while maintaining network stability.
4Reliability
If pre-checks are performed before traffic shifting, then safe rerouting is ensured, but time consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs pre-checks in advance to verify network capacity, topology consistency, and routing feasibility. By completing these checks before traffic shifting, the actual rerouting process can proceed quickly and safely without time-consuming adjustments during execution, thus balancing reliability with time efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements rapid traffic shifting after pre-checks are passed, minimizing the time between verification and execution. This approach allows the system to skip unnecessary delays and rush through the actual traffic rerouting process once safety is confirmed, reducing overall time consumption while maintaining safe shifting practices.
Data Source
AI summary
A traffic shifting system is described to shift traffic away from one or more network devices or interfaces. The system ensures that traffic can be safely shifted off of a network device before the shifting occurs. The method is described as broken into several phases, such as a discovery phase, a pre-check phase, a shifting phase, and a post-shift phase. Before shifting occurs, the discovery phase is used to obtain network topology and configuration information. In the pre-check phase, that information is interrogated so that a shifting can be performed without negatively impacting the network. If the pre-check phase is passed, then the network shifting can occur through adjustment of configuration parameters, such as a cost parameter associated with an interface on any devices for which traffic is being shifted. Finally, in the post-shift phase, checks are performed to ensure traffic is shifting away from the network device.