NETWORK PACKET STEERING VIA CONFIGURABLE ASSOCIATION OF PROCESSING RESOURCES AND NETWORK INTERFACES

• US 20090238181A1
• Filed: 06/02/2009
• Published: 09/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/04/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Fortinet Inc.
• Inventors: Millet, Tim, Kim, Paul, Hussain, Zahid, Desai, Sachin, Yeung, Louise, Yeung, Ken
• Granted Patent: US 8,306,040 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/389
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4625 Single bridge functionality, e.g. connection of two networks over a single bridge
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/22 Traffic shaping
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2441 relying on flow classification, e.g. using integrated services [IntServ]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2491 Mapping quality of service [QoS] requirements between different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/254 Centralised controller, i.e. arbitration or scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/30 Peripheral units, e.g. input or output ports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/65 Re-configuration of fast packet switches

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for steering network packets. According to one embodiment a method is provided for steering incoming network packets. Each network packet processing resource of a network routing/switching device is dynamically assigned to one or more network interfaces of the network routing/switching device. Each of the network packet processing resources includes one or more processing elements and a memory. Incoming network packets received by the network interfaces are steered to an appropriate network packet processing resource based on the dynamic assignment.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

for each of a plurality of network packet processing resources of a network routing/switching device, dynamically assigning the network packet processing resource to one or more of a plurality of network interfaces of the network routing/switching device, each of the plurality of network packet processing resources including one or more processing elements and a memory; and

steering incoming network packets received by the plurality of network interfaces to an appropriate network packet processing resource based on the dynamic assignment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamic assignment of each of the plurality of network packet processing resources to the one or more network interfaces is based on processing or memory capacity of the assigned network packet processing resource.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said dynamically assigning comprises pushing a steering table from the assigned network packet processing resources to the network interfaces to which they have been assigned.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamic assignment is represented as a table data structure within a volatile memory of those of the plurality of network interfaces that have been assigned a network packet processing resource of the plurality of network packet processing resources.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said steering incoming network packets further comprises determining a specific process of a plurality of processes within the appropriate network packet processing resource to which the received incoming network packet is to be steered.

6. A network packet steering system, comprising:

a plurality of network packet processing resources provided by a network routing/switching device, each of the network packet processing resources including one or more processing elements and a memory;

a plurality of network interfaces of the network routing/switching device; and

wherein the plurality of network packet processing resources are configurable, uniquely identified within the network routing/switching device, and dynamically assigned to one or more of the plurality of network interfaces, and wherein those of the one or more network interfaces that have been assigned a network packet processing resource of the plurality of network packet processing resources steer subsequently received incoming network packets to the assigned network packet processing resource of the plurality of network packet processing resources based on the dynamically configured assignment.

7. The network packet steering system of claim 6, wherein the dynamically configured assignment is provided by the assigned network packet processing resources of the plurality of network packet processing resources to those of the one or more network interfaces that have been assigned a network packet processing resource of the plurality of network packet processing resources, and the dynamically configured assignment is represented as a table data structure within a volatile memory of those of the one or more network interfaces that have been assigned a network packet processing resource of the plurality of network packet processing resources.

8. The network packet steering system of claim 6, wherein one or more of the network interfaces that has been assigned a network packet processing resource of the plurality of network packet processing resources uses the dynamically configured assignment to perform one or more filter operations on the incoming network packets prior to steering the incoming network packets to the assigned network packet processing resource.

9. The network packet steering system of claim 8, wherein the one or more filter operations are used to detect at least one of a current volume of network traffic, a content format of the incoming network packet, and a context within which the incoming network packet is received.

10. The network packet steering system of claim 6, wherein the dynamically configured assignment is based on processing capabilities of the plurality of network packet processing resources.

11. A computer-readable storage medium having tangibly embodied thereon instructions, which when executed by one or more computer processors of a network routing/switching device, cause a method to be performed comprising the following computer-implemented steps:

dynamically configuring a plurality of network interfaces of the network routing/switching device by assigning each processing resource of a plurality of processing resources of the network routing/switching device to one or more of the plurality of network interfaces, each of the plurality of processing resources including one or more network packet processing elements and a memory; and

for each of the plurality of network interfaces, steering incoming network packets received by the network interface to the processing resource of the plurality of processing resources that has been assigned to the network interface.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the dynamic assignment of each of the plurality of processing resources to the one or more network interfaces is based on processing or memory capacity of the assigned processing resource.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein said dynamically configuring a plurality of network interfaces of the network routing/switching device comprises for each of the plurality of network interfaces receiving a steering table from the assigned processing resources.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the dynamic assignment is represented as a table data structure within a volatile memory of those of the plurality of network interfaces that have been assigned a processing resource of the plurality of processing resources.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein said steering incoming network packets further comprises determining a specific process of a plurality of processes within the assigned processing resource to which the received incoming network packet is to be steered.