US 10,476,790 B2Granted

Service chaining at a network device

AssigneeCisco Technology, Inc.

InventorsSamar Sharma, Mahadeva Swamy Chandra

Life of this patent

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Abstract

In one embodiment, a network device is provided that comprises a plurality of ports at which network packets are received at the network device and sent from the network device. At least hardware module includes one or more memories that store entries for one or more networking features to be performed to direct network packets with respect to the plurality of ports. A processor is coupled to the at least one hardware module and configured to communicate with the at least one hardware module to store in the one or more memories attributes for one or more access control lists and associated actions that cause network packets which are received that match the attributes for the one or more access control lists, to be directed in a service chain that includes one or more network processing appliances connected to one or more of the plurality of ports.

Claims20

Dependent claims

An apparatus comprising:

a plurality of ports at which network packets are obtained at the apparatus and provided from the apparatus;
at least one hardware module coupled to the plurality of ports, wherein the at least one hardware module includes one or more memories that store entries for one or more networking features to be performed to direct the network packets with respect to the plurality of ports, wherein the at least one hardware module is configured to direct first one or more of the network packets having first one or more attributes for one or more access control lists in a service chain that includes one or more network processing appliances connected to one or more of the plurality of ports in a Layer 3 mode by rewriting one or more addresses in the first one or more of the network packets in order to direct the first one or more of the network packets in the service chain;
and
a processor coupled to the at least one hardware module and configured to communicate with the at least one hardware module to store in the one or more memories the first one or more attributes and associated actions that cause the first one or more of the network packets, to be directed in the service chain.

1 more element

One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor of a network device, cause the processor to:

obtain commands to instantiate and configure one or more service chains on the network device;
and
based on the commands, store in at least one hardware module of the network device first one or more attributes for one or more access control lists and associated actions that cause first one or more network packets which are obtained at one or more of a plurality of ports of the network device that match the first one or more attributes, to be directed in a service chain that includes one or more network processing appliances connected to one or more of the plurality of ports in a Layer 3 mode by rewriting one or more addresses in the first one or more network packets in order to direct the first one or more network packets in the service chain.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 15/825,439Filed 29 Nov 2017
Priority: IN 20164104324919 Dec 2016
Published: US 2018/0176128 A121 Jun 2018
Granted: 12 Nov 2019
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification18 codes

H04L 45/64
Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks: using an overlay routing layer
H04L 41/0806
Configuration setting: for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
H04L 41/082
Characterised by the conditions triggering a change of settings: the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality
H04L 41/0886
Aspects of the degree of configuration automation: fully automatic configuration