Monitoring through S-BFD (seamless bidirectional forwarding detection)

• US 10,069,708 B2
• Filed: 03/02/2015
• Issued: 09/04/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Raghavan, Srihari, Akiya, Nobushige, Pignataro, Carlos M., Mudigonda, Mallik, Nainar, Nagendra Kumar
• Primary Examiner(s): Ohri, Romani
• Application Number:
  US14/635,438
• Publication Number:
  US 20160261474A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,282 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5012 determining service availability, e.g. which services are available at a certain point in time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method includes assigning a discriminator to a target in communication with a reflector at a network device, identifying at the reflector, a packet comprising the discriminator, the packet transmitted from an initiator in a seamless bidirectional forwarding detection (S-BFD) session, and transmitting a response packet from the reflector to the initiator. The response packet includes information for the target obtained by the reflector through monitoring of the target. The target may comprise a plurality of entities. An apparatus and logic are also disclosed herein.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

assigning a discriminator to a target in communication with a reflector at a network device, the target comprising a plurality of entities monitored by the reflector;

identifying at the reflector, a packet comprising the assigned discriminator, the packet transmitted from a seamless bidirectional forwarding detection (S-BFD) initiator node in an S-BFD session with the reflector node to test said plurality of entities; and

transmitting a response packet from the reflector to the initiator in response to receiving the identified packet, the response packet comprising information for the target obtained by the reflector through monitoring of the target to provide a status of said plurality of entities to the S-BFD initiator node;

wherein the discriminator comprises an aggregate discriminator and each of said entities is assigned an S-BFD discriminator and wherein S-BFD is stateless on the target.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of entities comprises service functions in a service function chain.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of entities comprise a plurality of sensors.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the sensors are located in a cell tower.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein the sensors are located in home appliances in communication with the reflector.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising continuously monitoring the target at the reflector.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising monitoring the target only upon receiving the packet from the initiator.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein said information for the target comprises one or more diagnostic codes.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising advertising the discriminator at the network device.

10. An apparatus comprising:

a processor for assigning a discriminator to a target in communication with a reflector at the apparatus, processing a packet comprising the discriminator and received from an initiator in a seamless bidirectional forwarding detection (S-BFD) session with the reflector, and transmitting a response packet to the initiator in response to receiving the packet comprising the discriminator, the response packet comprising information for the target; and

memory for storing said information for the target, wherein said information comprises one or more diagnostic codes associated with the target and obtained through monitoring of the target at the reflector;

wherein the target comprising a plurality of entities monitored by the reflector and the response packet provides a status of said plurality of entities to the initiator; and

wherein the discriminator comprises an aggregate discriminator and each of said entities is assigned an S-BFD discriminator and wherein S-BFD is stateless on the target.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the target comprises a plurality of entities.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein said plurality of entities comprise Service functions in a service function chain.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein said plurality of entities comprise a plurality of sensors.

14. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the reflector is configured for operation at a cell tower.

15. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the processor is further operable to continuously monitor the target.

16. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the processor is operable to only monitor the target upon receipt of the packet.

17. Logic encoded on one or more non-transitory computer readable media for execution and when executed operable to:

assign a discriminator to a target in an Internet of Everything/Internet of Things (IoE/IoT) domain, the target comprising a plurality IoE/IoT entities;

identify the discriminator in a packet received from an initiator in a seamless bidirectional forwarding detection (S-BFD) session;

monitor and collect health information for the target;

generate a response packet comprising said health information for the target to provide a status of said plurality of IoE/IoT entities to the initiator; and

transmit the response packet to the initiator;

wherein the discriminator comprises an aggregate discriminator and each of said entities is associated with a different S-BFD discriminator and wherein S-BFD is stateless on the target.

18. The logic of claim 17 wherein said health information comprises diagnostic codes associated with the target.