METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CUSTOMER-CONTROLLED ROUTING MANAGEMENT

• US 20090161679A1
• Filed: 12/19/2007
• Published: 06/25/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bajpay, Paritosh, Yang, Chen-Yui, Singh, Anand
• Granted Patent: US 7,764,702 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/395.530
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0873 Checking configuration conflicts between network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0883 Semiautomatic configuration, e.g. proposals from system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0886 Fully automatic configuration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0895 Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/122 of virtualised topologies, e.g. software-defined networks [SDN] or network function virtualisation [NFV]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery

Abstract

In one embodiment, the present invention is a method and apparatus for customer-controlled routing management. In one embodiment, a system for managing routing in a virtual private network includes a configuration management system for receiving settings from a user of the virtual private network, the settings specifying at least one of: virtual private network topology and routing preferences, and for provisioning the virtual private network in accordance with the user settings and a validation management system for validating the provisioned virtual private network.

Claims

1. A method for managing routing in a virtual private network, comprising:

receiving settings from a user of the virtual private network, the settings specifying at least one of;

virtual private network topology and routing preferences;

provisioning the virtual private network in accordance with the user settings; and

validating the provisioned virtual private network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user settings provide for the conversion of an any-to-any topology to a hub and spoke topology.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the provisioning comprises:

designating at least one hub private virtual channel;

designating at least one Internet Protocol virtual channel after designating the at least one hub private virtual channel, a first end of the Internet Protocol virtual channel having a virtual private network site type set to “

hub” and

a second end of the Internet Protocol virtual channel having a virtual private network site type set to “

spoke”

; and

designating at least one spoke private virtual channel after designating the at least one Internet Protocol virtual channel.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user settings provide for the creation of at least one routing group, the routing group comprising one or more virtual private network sites that share common routing preferences.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the provisioning comprises:

associating a virtual private network routing and forwarding table with each routing group.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein each virtual private network routing and forwarding table comprises:

one or more preferred routes, prioritized in order of preference; and

one rejected route.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the one or more preferred routes and the one rejected route are defined in accordance with border gateway protocol community values.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the validating comprises testing to confirm at least one of:

that routing groups are provisioned in accordance with the user settings, that virtual private network routing and forwarding tables on provider edge routers are connected to appropriate routers, that the provider edge routers have community values as set by associated customer edge routers, that the provider edge routers assign correct weights to each route in the routing groups, that bidirectional traffic between customer edge routers is routed in accordance with the weights assigned to the routes in the virtual private network routing and forwarding tables, that there are no errors on any nodes in the virtual private network, that there are no network alarms, that connection integrity on connections set up for traffic is verified, that all cards in the virtual private network are updated with current hardware and firmware, and that the virtual private network is clean.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

reporting results of the provisioning to the user.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting a problem with the provisioning during validation; and

reporting the detected problem to a service provider work center.

11. A computer readable medium containing an executable program for managing routing in a virtual private network, where the program performs the steps of:

receiving settings from a user of the virtual private network, the settings specifying at least one of;

virtual private network topology and routing preferences;

provisioning the virtual private network in accordance with the user settings; and

validating the provisioned virtual private network.

12. A system for managing routing in a virtual private network, comprising:

a configuration management system for receiving settings from a user of the virtual private network, the settings specifying at least one of;

virtual private network topology and routing preferences, and for provisioning the virtual private network in accordance with the user settings; and

a validation management system for validating the provisioned virtual private network.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the configuration management system comprises:

means for designating at least one hub private virtual channel;

means for designating at least one Internet Protocol virtual channel after designating the at least one hub private virtual channel, a first end of the Internet Protocol virtual channel having a virtual private network site type set to “

hub” and

a second end of the Internet Protocol virtual channel having a virtual private network site type set to “

spoke”

; and

means for designating at least one spoke private virtual channel after designating the at least one Internet Protocol virtual channel.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the configuration management system comprises:

means for associating a virtual private network routing and forwarding table with each of one or more routing groups designed by the user settings, each of the one or more routing groups comprising one or more virtual private network sites that share common routing preferences.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein each virtual private network routing and forwarding table comprises:

one or more preferred routes, prioritized in order of preference; and

one rejected route.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more preferred routes and the one rejected route are defined in accordance with border gateway protocol community values.

17. The system of claim 12, wherein the validation management system is configured to run tests to confirm at least one of:

that routing groups are provisioned in accordance with the user settings, that virtual private network routing and forwarding tables on provider edge routers are connected to appropriate routers, that the provider edge routers have community values as set by associated customer edge routers, that the provider edge routers assign correct weights to each route in the routing groups, that bidirectional traffic between customer edge routers is routed in accordance with the weights assigned to the routes in the virtual private network routing and forwarding tables, that there are no errors on any nodes in the virtual private network, that there are no network alarms, that connection integrity on connections set up for traffic is verified, that all cards in the virtual private network are updated with current hardware and firmware, and that the virtual private network is clean.

18. The system of claim 12, further comprising:

a reporting management system for reporting results of the provisioning to the user.

19. The system of claim 12, further comprising:

a reporting management system for reporting one or more problems detected by the validation management system to a service provider work center.

20. The system of claim 12, further comprising:

a virtual private network topology database for storing topology data for the virtual private network.