On-demand virtual routing and forwarding table creation
AssigneeAT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
InventorsIsrael Means, Praveen Ramadenu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, network device(s) capable of on-demand virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) table creation. A network device may receive a request from a customer device requesting on-demand VRF creation, and may instantiate and provision a VRF in response. The request made by the customer device may be made by announcing an attribute in a border gateway protocol (BGP) message. Other embodiments are disclosed.
Claims20
A device, comprising:
- a processing system including a processor;
- and
- a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
- storing a table on the device, the table mapping a plurality of community values (CVs) to a plurality of route targets;
- assigning a customer-specific community value to a customer edge (CE) router;
- subsequent to the storing and the assigning, receiving a first border gateway protocol (BGP) attribute from the CE router, wherein the first BGP attribute includes the customer-specific community value;
- determining that the customer-specific community value matches one of a plurality of known community values;
- responsive to the determining, instantiating a virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) instance to route traffic received from the CE router;
- populating the VRF instance by mapping the customer-specific community value to a route target using the table stored on the device;
- and
- tracking an amount of time that the VRF instance is in place, in order to determine an amount to charge for use of the VRF instance.
A non-transitory, machine-readable medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
- assigning a customer-specific community value to a customer edge (CE) router;
- receiving a first border gateway protocol (BGP) attribute directly from the CE router, wherein the first BGP attribute includes the customer-specific community value;
- determining that the customer-specific community value matches one of a plurality of known community values;
- responsive to the determining, instantiating a virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) instance to route traffic received from the CE router;
- populating the VRF instance by mapping the customer-specific community value to a route target using a table stored in the processing system;
- and
- tracking an amount of data movement, in order to determine an amount to charge for use of the VRF instance.
A method, comprising:
- assigning, by a processing system including a processor, a customer-specific community value to a customer edge (CE) router;
- receiving, by the processing system, a first border gateway protocol (BGP) attribute from the CE router, wherein the first BGP attribute comprises the customer-specific community value;
- comparing, by the processing system, a value of the customer-specific community value to a plurality of known attribute values;
- responsive to the comparing, instantiating, by the processing system, a virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) instance to route traffic received from the CE router;
- populating the VRF instance by mapping the value of the customer-specific community value to a route target using a table stored in the processing system, the table mapping a plurality of community values to a plurality of route targets;
- and
- subsequent to the instantiating, receiving, by the processing system, a second community value from the CE router, wherein the second community value is indicative of a request to return to a default routing context.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.