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Service chain header and metadata transport

  • US 10,003,530 B2
  • Filed: 07/22/2015
  • Issued: 06/19/2018
  • Est. Priority Date: 07/22/2014
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method for service chain header processing in a communication network, the method comprising:

  • inserting, by an upstream service function chain (SFC) entity, a metadata Type-Length-Value (TLV) field into a service chain header (SCH) appended to a packet to be forwarded over a service chain path, wherein the SCH comprises a version field that indicates a version associated with the SCH for a downstream SFC entity to process the SCH according to the version, the version associated with the SCH representing a SCH version and being used for backward compatibility going forward with future SCH updates, and wherein the metadata Type-Length-Value (TLV) field includes metadata information with a variable length for processing the packet at the downstream SFC entity on the service chain path; and

    forwarding the packet to the downstream SFC entity over the service chain path.

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