VPN Fault Identification via Component Relationship Mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Determining faults and status in complex Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) is challenging due to their intricate software and hardware configurations, requiring efficient methods to quickly identify affected areas and classify fault seriousness.
Innovation Solution
A network management system that uses a database to store relationships between VPN components and a management software package to identify affected components and classify fault seriousness, employing a color scheme to visually represent component status and affected areas.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If VPN networks use complicated software and hardware configurations to provide advanced network services, then service functionality and versatility are improved, but fault determination and status detection become more challenging
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the VPN network into distinct hierarchical levels (customer edge routers CE, provider edge routers PE, core routers) and component types (interfaces, routing tables, forwarding tables). This segmentation allows the management system to systematically track and isolate faults to specific segments, reducing the complexity of fault determination while maintaining the advanced service functionalities enabled by the complicated software and hardware configurations.
2Reliability
If the network uses multiple routers and interfaces to establish complex routing paths, then network reliability and service availability are improved, but the complexity of determining affected areas increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-establishing and storing the complete topological information and routing relationships in the management system's database before faults occur. The system maintains pre-configured knowledge of which interfaces connect to which routers, which routing tables are associated with which VRFs, and the hierarchical relationships between all network components. This preliminary data structure enables rapid fault impact analysis without requiring complex real-time computation when failures occur.
3Measurement precision
If the management system stores detailed relationship information in a database, then fault impact analysis accuracy is improved, but system resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by organizing the database into specialized tables that store specific relationship information locally at different hierarchical levels. The system maintains separate data structures for CE-PE interface relationships, PE-VRF mappings, VRF-routing table associations, and routing table-entry relationships. This localized organization allows the system to store detailed relationship information for accurate fault impact analysis while optimizing storage efficiency by only maintaining the necessary relationship data at each level rather than redundant global information throughout the entire database.
Data Source
AI summary
In an embodiment, a network service provider (NSP) operates a provider network to provide VPN services to its customers. A VPN links various customer sites allowing customers to send data between these sites over the NSP network. Each site network includes a customer edge router (CE) while the provider network includes a plurality of provider edge routers (PEs) to communicate with the CEs. The PEs include virtual routing address (VRFs), and the PEs and CEs include interfaces (IFs). A database stores information related to the relationships between the network components (e.g., VPNs, PEs, CEs, VRFs, IFs, etc.), and a management software package (MSP) has access to the database. When a fault occurs, the MSP, based on collected information and information in the database, determines the impacted network components. Other features include classifying the seriousness of the network's faults and representing different faults by a color scheme.