System and method for virtual router failover in a network routing system

• US 20040078621A1
• Filed: 08/29/2002
• Published: 04/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CoSine Communications, Inc. (Steel Partners Holdings LP)
• Inventors: Subramaniam, Sridhar, Talaugon, Wilson, Chin, Bill, Aaronson, Itai
• Granted Patent: US 7,096,383 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2028 eliminating a faulty processor or activating a spare
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2046 where the redundant components share persistent storage G06F11/2043 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0233 Object-oriented techniques, for representation of network management data, e.g. common object request broker architecture [CORBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0661 by reconfiguring faulty entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0856 by backing up or archiving configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0895 Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/045 for graphical visualisation of monitoring data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/06 Generation of reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/586 of virtual routers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/25 Routing or path finding in a switch fabric
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/354 for supporting virtual local area networks [VLAN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/557 Error correction, e.g. fault recovery or fault tolerance
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 Virtual switches
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0272 Virtual private networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

In a network routing system, a control blade provides for redundancy and failover of virtual routers (VRs) instantiated by objects running on processing engines of the several virtual routing engines (VREs). When the control blade detects a failure of one processing engines, it may identify the virtual private networks (VPNs) and/or VRs operating on the failed processing engine. The control blade identifies a set of command lines corresponding with the identified VPNs and VRs, and replays the set of command lines with an identity of a new processing engine to recreate the identified VPNs and VRs on the new processing engine.

Claims

1. A virtual router (VR) system comprising:

a plurality of virtual routers instantiated by objects running on processing engines;

a fault manager to detect a failure of one of the processing engines;

an object manager to identify VRs operating on a failed processing engine;

a command line interface engine to identify a set of command lines corresponding with the identified VRs, and to replay the set of command lines with an identity of a new processing engine to recreate the identified VRs on the new processing engine.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the fault manager monitors keep-alive messages from the processing engines and to detect the failure of one of the processing engines.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein each VR is instantiated by objects running on one of the processing engines, and wherein the command line interface engine replays the set of command lines re-instantiate the objects to run on the new processing engine.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the object manager updates an object manager database to identify the VRs as operating on the new processor engine after recreating the identified VRs on the new processing engine.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the fault manager selects the new processing engine and provides a slot ID and PE ID of the new processing engine to the command line interface engine, wherein the fault manager and object manager are comprised of objects running on a control blade of the VR system.

6. The system of claim 5 further comprising a switching fabric coupling the processing engines and the control blade, and wherein the processing engines are configured to communicate keep-alive messages in a peer-to-peer networking technique through the switching fabric.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the object manager provides a list of VPNs and the VRs instantiated on the failed processing engine in response to a request by the fault manager.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the request by the fault manager includes a slot ID and a processing engine ID of the failed processing engine, the slot ID identifying a particular one of a plurality virtual routing engines (VREs) located at a particular chassis slot, the processing engine ID identifying a particular one of the processing engines of the identified VRE.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the command line interface engine identifies the set of command lines from a configuration file corresponding with the identified VRs.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the command line interface engine replays the set of command lines with an identity of the new processing engine substituted for the identity of the failed processing engine to recreate the identified VRs on the new processing engine.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein in response to detection of a failure of one of the processing engines, the fault manager queries the object manager to generate a list identifying the VRs that were created on the failed processing engine, the fault manager providing the object manager a slot ID and a processor engine ID to identify the failed processor engine to the object manager.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the object manager further identifies one or more virtual private networks (VPNs) operating on the failed processing engine, the VPNs comprised of multiple VRs, each VR being comprised of a plurality of objects operating on one of the processing engines, and wherein the command line interface engine identifies a set of command lines corresponding with the identified VPNs, and replays the set of command lines with an identity of the new processing engine to recreate the identified VPNs on the new processing engine.

13. The system of claim 12 further comprising a configuration manager to create the VPNs and VRs, wherein each VR has an IP address.

14. A method of operating a virtual router system comprising:

monitoring keep-alive messages from processing engines to detect a failure of one of the processing engines;

identifying virtual routers (VRs) operating on the failed one of the processing engines; and

replaying a set of command lines with an identity of a new one of the processing engines to recreate the identified VRs on the new processing engine.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein each VR is instantiated by objects running on one of the processing engines, and wherein the replaying the set of command lines re-instantiate the objects on the new processing engine,

and wherein the method further comprising:

updating an object manager database to identify the VRs as operating on the new processing engine.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising selecting the new processing engine and providing a slot ID and PE ID of the new processing engine to a command line interface engine to replay the set of command lines.

17. The method of claim 14 further comprising creating a plurality of VRs to operate on the processing engines, each VR being defined by a set of objects to operation on one of the processing engines.

18. The method of claim 14 further comprising communicating the keep-alive messages between the processing engines using a peer-to-peer networking technique through a switching fabric coupling the processing engines and the control blade.

19. The method of claim 14 further comprising providing provides a list of VPNs and the VRs instantiated on the failed processing engine in response to a request by a fault manager, the request including a slot ID and a processing engine ID of the failed processing engine, the slot ID identifying a particular one of a plurality virtual routing engines (VREs) located at a particular chassis slot, the processing engine ID identifying a particular one of the processing engines of the identified VRE.

20. A virtual routing system comprising:

a plurality of virtual routing engine (VRE) blades each having at least one processing engine to operate a plurality of virtual private networks (VPNs) and corresponding virtual routers (VRs);

a control blade to detect a failure of one the processing engines; and

switching fabric coupling the control blade and the VRE blades,

wherein the control blade identifies the VPNs and VRs operating on a failed processing engine, identifies a set of command lines corresponding with the identified VPNs and VRs, and replay the set of command lines with an identity of a new processing engine to recreate the identified VPNs and VRs on the new processing engine.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein the control blade includes a fault manager to detect the failure of one of the processing engines, an object manager to identify the VPNs and VRs operating on the failed processing engine, and a command line interface engine to identify the set of command lines and to replay the set of command lines with the identity of the new processing engine to recreate the identified VPNs and VRs on the new processing engine.

22. The system of claim 21 further comprising a line interface coupled with the switch fabric to receive IP packets from a network for routing by the virtual routers operating on the at least one VRE blade, and wherein the processing engines are configured to communicate keep-alive messages in a peer-to-peer networking technique through the switching fabric.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein in response to detection of a failure of one of the processing engines, the fault manager queries the object manager to generate a list identifying the VRs that were created on the failed processing engine, the fault manager providing the object manager a slot ID and a processor engine ID to identify the failed processor engine to the object manager.

24. The system of claim 23 wherein the object manager updates an object manager database to identify the VRs as operating on the new processor engine after recreating the identified VRs on the new processing engine, and

wherein the request by the fault manager includes a slot ID and a processing engine ID of the failed processing engine, the slot ID identifying a particular one of a plurality virtual routing engines (VREs) located at a particular chassis slot, the processing engine ID identifying a particular one of the processing engines of the identified VRE.

25. A computer readable medium having program instructions stored thereon that when executed within a digital processing device result in:

monitoring keep-alive messages from processing engines to detect a failure of a processing engine;

identifying virtual routers (VRs) operating on the failed the processing engine; and

replaying a set of command lines with an identity of a new one of the processing engines to recreate the identified VRs on the new processing engine.