US 2014/0351452 A1 · Chaining Service Zones by way of Route Re-Origination

Abstract

Presented herein are techniques for use in a network environment that includes one or more service zones, each service zone including at least one instance of an in-line application service to be applied to network traffic and one or more routers to direct network traffic to the at least one service, and a route target being assigned to a unique service zone to serve as a community value for route import and export between routers of other service zones, destination networks or source networks via a control protocol. An edge router in each service zone or destination network advertises routes by its destination network prefix tagged with its route target. A service chain is created by importing and exporting of destination network prefixes by way of route targets at edge routers of the service zones or source networks.

Claims25

Dependent claims

In a network environment comprising one or more service zones, each service zone including at least one instance of an in-line application service to be applied to network traffic and one or more routers to direct network traffic to the at least one service, and a route target being assigned to a unique service zone to serve as a community value for route import and export between routers of other service zones, destination networks or source networks via a control protocol, a method comprising;

an edge router in each service zone or destination network advertising routes by its destination network prefix tagged with its route target;
and
creating a service chain by importing and exporting of destination network prefixes by way of route targets at edge routers of the service zones or source networks.

An apparatus comprising:

a plurality of ports configured to receive packets from and to send output packets to a network;
a router unit coupled to the plurality of ports and configured make decisions as to how to route received packets to ports for output to the network;
a processor coupled to the router unit, wherein the processor is configured to:
advertise routes by a destination network prefix tagged with a route target for a service zone or destination network in a network environment comprising one or more service zones, each service zone including at least one instance of an in-line application service to be applied to network traffic, and a route target having been assigned to each unique service zone to serve as a community value for route import and export between routers of other service zones, destination networks or source networks via a control protocol;
and
create a service chain by importing and exporting of destination network prefixes by way of route targets at edge routers of the service zones or source networks.

3 more elements

One or more computer readable storage media encoded with software comprising computer executable instructions and when the software is executed operable to:

advertise routes by a destination network prefix tagged with a route target for a service zone or destination network in a network environment comprising one or more service zones, each service zone including at least one instance of an in-line application service to be applied to network traffic, and a route target having been assigned to each unique service zone to serve as a community value for route import and export between routers of other service zones, destination networks or source networks via a control protocol;
and
create a service chain by importing and exporting of destination network prefixes by way of route targets at edge routers of the service zones or source networks.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Chaining Service Zones by way of Route Re-Origination

Life of this patent

Chaining Service Zones by way of Route Re-Origination

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims25