US 10,771,315 B2Granted

High availability using multiple network elements

AssigneeFuturewei Technologies, Inc.

InventorsHuaimo Chen, Katherine Zhao, Ming Li

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Abstract

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a system includes an active network element having circuitry for executing a primary application and a transmission control protocol (TCP) module, multiple standby network elements having circuitry for executing a secondary copy of the primary application and a secondary TCP module, and a network connection coupled to one or more of the active and standby network elements, wherein the active network element and standby network elements are coupled to transfer data and acknowledgments via their respective TCP modules, and wherein the standby network elements are reconfigurable to communicate via the network connection to a peer regardless of the failure of one or two of the network elements.

Claims16

Dependent claims

A router comprising:

an active control board having circuitry for executing a primary application and a transmission control protocol (TCP) module;
multiple standby control boards having circuitry for executing a secondary copy of the primary application and a secondary TCP module;
and
a line card coupled to each of the active and standby control boards,
wherein the active control board and standby control boards are coupled to transfer data and acknowledgments via their respective TCP modules, wherein the standby control boards are reconfigurable to communicate via the line card to a peer via a network regardless of a failure of two of the control boards, and wherein sequence numbers for most recent acknowledged data packets by each of the control boards are used to synchronize data packets in response to such failure,
wherein the active control board is configured to aggregate multiple data packets and multicast such aggregated multiple data packets to the standby control boards in response to a trigger event,
wherein the active control board is configured to receive acknowledgments from multiple standby control boards of a first multicast of aggregated data packets and responsive to receiving a set number of acknowledgments from less than all of the multiple standby control boards, transmit a next multicast of aggregated data packets.

4 more elements

A standby control board comprising:

a processor;
and
memory and instructions for performing a method comprising:
executing a secondary copy of a primary application executing on an active control board and a transmission control protocol (TCP);
receiving data packets originating from a peer coupled via a line card;
providing acknowledgments for the received data packets;
and
becoming a new active control board responsive to failure of the active control board to communicate via the line card to a peer via a network, and one or more further standby control boards not via the network, regardless of a failure of an additional control board, wherein sequence numbers for most recent acknowledged data packets are used to synchronize data packets in response to such failure, and wherein upon becoming the new active control board performs operations comprising:
receiving a sequence number for most recent acknowledged data packets from the other standby control boards;
finding a minimum sequence number from the received sequence numbers;
sending the minimum sequence number to each of the standby control boards;
receiving data corresponding to sequence numbers between the minimum sequence number and the sequence number from each of the standby control boards having a sequence number greater than the minimum sequence number;
and
sending the received data to each standby control board such that all control boards are synchronized with the data packet having the highest sequence number.

11 more elements

A computer implemented method comprising:

receiving incoming data from a peer at an active control board transmission protocol (TCP) module and multiple standby control board TCP modules in a router from a line card of the router;
providing the data to an application duplicated on each of the active and standby control boards via the line card;
each active and standby control board acknowledging receipt of the data via the TCP modules;
and
acknowledging receipt of the data to the peer via the line card responsive to the control boards acknowledging receipt of the data, wherein sequence numbers for most recent acknowledged data are used by a standby control board becoming a new active control board in response to failure of the active control board to synchronize data packets in response to such failure, and wherein the new active control board performs operations comprising:
receiving a sequence number for most recent acknowledged data packets from the other standby control boards;
finding a minimum sequence number from the received sequence numbers;
sending the minimum sequence number to each of the standby control boards;
receiving data corresponding to sequence numbers between the minimum sequence number and the sequence number from each of the standby control boards having a sequence number greater than the minimum sequence number;
and
sending the received data to each standby control board such that all control boards are synchronized with the data packet having the highest sequence number.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 15/894,644Filed 12 Feb 2018 · us provisional application
Priority: 14 Feb 2017
Published: US 2018/0234289 A116 Aug 2018
Granted: 8 Sep 2020
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification12 codes

H04L 41/0654
Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications: using network fault recovery
H04L 1/18
In which the return channel carries supervisory signals, e.g. repetition request signals: automatic repetition systems, e.g. Van Duuren systems
H04L 1/1874
Arrangements specially adapted for the transmitter end: buffer management
H04L 1/22
Arrangements for detecting or preventing errors in the information received: using redundant apparatus to increase reliability

Family

Application62/458,974Us provisional application · filed 14 Feb 2017
Application62/458,979Us provisional application · filed 14 Feb 2017
US 2018/0234289 A1Pre-grant publication · published 16 Aug 2018
US 10,771,315 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.

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