Traffic engineering for an application employing a connectionless protocol on a network
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorDinesh Chandra Verma
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention presents methods and apparatus supporting traffic engineering in a connectionless protocol network constituted by a core of plain routers, without dependencies on the underlying link protocol. The IP is used as an example of a connectionless protocol. It also enables a network operator to perform traffic engineering on a core network of plain routers supporting any connectionless protocol.
Claims17
A method for traffic engineering in a network of connectionless routers supporting a connectionless protocol, said method comprising the steps of:
- assigning a plurality of different virtual network addresses to at least one network access router from among said connectionless routers;
- assigning a different route for each of said plurality of different virtual network addresses in a core network;
- and
- forwarding packets to the at least one network access router along different routes in the core network using the virtual network addresses.
An access router for implementing traffic engineering in a connectionless protocol network, said access router comprising:
- a virtual network management module to determine a virtual network to which a packet belongs out of a plurality of virtual networks;
- a packet modification module to modify packets to use virtual network addresses in a core network;
- and
- a packet processing module to process the packet along different routes in said core network for each of said virtual network addresses.
A route selector for implementing traffic engineering in a network having connectionless routers with connectivity of a connectionless protocol, said route selector comprising:
- a route selector module to determine a route to be taken by the network to which a packet belongs;
- a virtual network assignment module to assign a plurality of virtual network addresses to at least one access router;
- and
- a router configuration module to modify routing tables and configuration in the connectionless routers, in accordance with assignments made by the virtual network assignment module, so that the packet takes a different route through a core network for each of said virtual addresses.
An access router for implementing traffic engineering in a connectionless protocol network, said access router comprising:
- a plurality of different virtual network addresses for said access router, each of said virtual addresses representing a different route to said access router, through a core network;
- a virtual network management module to determine an original network address to which a modified packet directed to one of said virtual network addresses belongs;
- a packet modification module to recreate an original packet from the modified packet;
- and
- a packet processing module to process the packet so that the packet is directed to the original network address.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.