US 7,453,797 B2 · Method to provide high availability in network elements using distributed architectures

Abstract

A method to provide high availability in network elements using distributed architectures. The method employs multiple software components that are distributed across data/forwarding plane and control plane elements in a network element. The software components in the data/forwarding plane include active and standby components. Components in the control plane a re provided to communicate with the components in the data/forwarding plane. A keep-alive messaging mechanism is used to monitor operation of the various elements in the network element. Upon detection of a failure to a hardware or software component, the data/forwarding plane and/or control plane elements are reconfigured, as applicable, to replace a failed active component with a corresponding standby component. This enables the network element to be reconfigured in a manner that is transparent to other network elements, and provided high availability for the network element.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

configuring a network element to include multiple sets of redundant control plane components, each redundant set including an active component and a standby component;
monitoring for a failure of an active control plane software component comprising a control plane protocol module running on a control plane card (“controller CPPM”) to perform a routing or switching protocol operation, the controller CPPM to work in conjunction with a control plane protocol module implemented on a data plane element (“worker CCPM”) to facilitate operation of the routing or switching protocol operation;
automatically reconfiguring the network element to employ a corresponding standby controller CPPM in place of the active controller CPPM during failure;
maintaining state change information that occurs at the worker CPPM while the controller CPPM is unavailable;
queuing messages including the state change information, wherein the worker CPPM determines which messages are to be queued;
and
providing the queued messages to the controller CPPM.

4 more elements

A computer storage medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions to execute in a network element, which, when executed perform operations including:

configuring a network element to include multiple sets of redundant control plane components, each redundant set including an active component and a standby component;
monitoring for a failure of an active control plane software component comprising a control plane protocol module running on a control plane card (“controller CPPM”) to perform a routing or switching protocol operation, the controller CPPM to work in conjunction with a control plane protocol module implemented on a data plane element (“worker CCPM”) to facilitate operation of the routing or switching protocol operation;
automatically reconfiguring the network element to employ a corresponding standby controller CPPM in place of the active controller CPPM during failure;
maintaining state change information that occurs at the worker CPPM while the controller CPPM is unavailable;
queuing messages including the state change information, wherein the worker CPPM determines which messages are to be queued;
and
providing the queued messages to the controller CPPM.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method to provide high availability in network elements using distributed architectures

Life of this patent

Method to provide high availability in network elements using distributed architectures

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims11