LOAD BALANCING NETWORK TRAFFIC ON A LABEL SWITCHED PATH USING RESOURCE RESERVATION PROTOCOL WITH TRAFFIC ENGINEERING
First Claim
1. A method for traffic-engineering an overall label switched path (LSP) across a network from an ingress device to an egress device, comprising:
- computing for the LSP a plurality of sub-paths to the egress device that satisfy a set of traffic-engineering constraints;
sending resource reservation requests to label-switching routers (LSRs) along two or more of the plurality of sub-paths of the overall LSP, wherein the resource reservation requests include an identifier associating the requests with the same overall LSP, and wherein the resource reservation requests each include an indicator specifying the requested overall LSP as a load-balancing LSP;
receiving resource reservation messages in response to the resource reservation requests that specify reserved resources and labels allocated to the overall LSP to be used for forwarding network traffic to corresponding next hops along the sub-paths of the overall LSP, wherein the resource reservation messages include an identifier associating the messages with the same overall LSP, and wherein the resource reservation messages each include an indicator specifying the overall LSP as a load-balancing LSP;
configuring a forwarding plane of the network device to store the labels and corresponding next hops for the sub-paths of the overall LSP;
configuring the forwarding plane with load balancing requirements that specify how network traffic is to be load-balanced across the sub-paths of the overall LSP;
receiving network traffic at the ingress device of the overall LSP;
in the forwarding plane of the ingress device, load balancing the network traffic across the sub-paths by selecting from among the stored labels and corresponding next hops for forwarding the network traffic in accordance with load balancing requirements; and
forwarding the network traffic with the selected labels onto sub-paths of the overall LSP.
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Abstract
Techniques are describe for establishing an overall label switched path (LSP) for load balancing network traffic being sent across a network using the a resource reservation protocol such as Resource Reservation Protocol with Traffic Engineering (RSVP-TE). The techniques include extensions to the RSVP-TE protocol that enable a router to send Path messages for establishing a tunnel that includes a plurality of sub-paths for the overall LSP. The tunnel may comprise a single RSVP-TE Label Switched Path (LSP) that is configured to load balance network traffic across different sub-paths of the RSVP-TE LSP over the network.
149 Citations
28 Claims
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1. A method for traffic-engineering an overall label switched path (LSP) across a network from an ingress device to an egress device, comprising:
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computing for the LSP a plurality of sub-paths to the egress device that satisfy a set of traffic-engineering constraints; sending resource reservation requests to label-switching routers (LSRs) along two or more of the plurality of sub-paths of the overall LSP, wherein the resource reservation requests include an identifier associating the requests with the same overall LSP, and wherein the resource reservation requests each include an indicator specifying the requested overall LSP as a load-balancing LSP; receiving resource reservation messages in response to the resource reservation requests that specify reserved resources and labels allocated to the overall LSP to be used for forwarding network traffic to corresponding next hops along the sub-paths of the overall LSP, wherein the resource reservation messages include an identifier associating the messages with the same overall LSP, and wherein the resource reservation messages each include an indicator specifying the overall LSP as a load-balancing LSP; configuring a forwarding plane of the network device to store the labels and corresponding next hops for the sub-paths of the overall LSP; configuring the forwarding plane with load balancing requirements that specify how network traffic is to be load-balanced across the sub-paths of the overall LSP; receiving network traffic at the ingress device of the overall LSP; in the forwarding plane of the ingress device, load balancing the network traffic across the sub-paths by selecting from among the stored labels and corresponding next hops for forwarding the network traffic in accordance with load balancing requirements; and forwarding the network traffic with the selected labels onto sub-paths of the overall LSP. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A router comprising:
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a control unit configured to execute a resource reservation protocol for traffic-engineering an overall label switched path (LSP) across a network from an ingress device to an egress device, wherein the resource reservation protocol is configured to compute for the overall LSP a plurality of alternate sub-paths to the egress device that satisfy the set of traffic-engineering constraints; a physical interface configured to send resource reservation requests generated by the resource reservation protocol to label-switching routers (LSRs) along two or more of the plurality of sub-paths of the overall LSP, wherein the resource reservation requests include an identifier associating the requests with the same overall LSP, and wherein the resource reservation requests each include an indicator specifying the requested overall LSP as a load-balancing LSP, and receive resource reservation messages in response to the resource reservation requests that specify reserved resources and labels allocated to the overall LSP to be used for forwarding network traffic to corresponding next hops along the sub-paths of the overall LSP, wherein the resource reservation messages include an identifier associating the messages with the same overall LSP, and wherein the resource reservation messages each include an indicator specifying the overall LSP as a load-balancing LSP; a forwarding plane configured to store the labels and corresponding next hops for the sub-paths of the overall LSP, wherein the resource reservation protocol configures the forwarding plane with load balancing requirements that specify how network traffic is to be load-balanced across the sub-paths of the overall LSP; and a load balancing module executing on the forwarding plane, wherein the load balancing module is configured to load balance the network traffic across the sub-paths by selecting from among the stored labels and corresponding next hops for forwarding the network traffic in accordance with load balancing requirements, and wherein the interface is configured to forward the network traffic with the selected labels onto sub-paths of the overall LSP. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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28. A computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for causing a programmable processor to:
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execute a resource reservation protocol for traffic-engineering an overall label switched path (LSP) across a network from an ingress device to an egress device; compute for the LSP a plurality of alternate sub-paths to the egress device that satisfy a set of traffic-engineering constraints; send resource reservation requests to label-switching routers (LSRs) along two or more of the plurality of sub-paths of the overall LSP, wherein the resource reservation requests include an identifier associating the requests with the same overall LSP, and wherein the resource reservation requests each include an indicator specifying the requested overall LSP as a load-balancing LSP; receive resource reservation messages in response to the resource reservation requests that specify reserved resources and labels allocated to the overall LSP to be used for forwarding network traffic to corresponding next hops along the sub-paths of the overall LSP, wherein the resource reservation messages include an identifier associating the messages with the same overall LSP, and wherein the resource reservation messages each include an indicator specifying the overall LSP as a load-balancing LSP; configure a forwarding plane of a network device to store the labels and corresponding next hops for the sub-paths of the overall LSP; and configure the forwarding plane to apply flow-level load balancing to the received network traffic to load balance the packet flows across the sub-paths of the overall LSP by selecting from among the stored labels and corresponding next hops for forwarding the packet flows in accordance with load balancing requirements.
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Specification