FAULT TOLERANT ROUTING IN A NON-HOT-STANDBY CONFIGURATION OF A NETWORK ROUTING SYSTEM

• US 20110185221A1
• Filed: 04/08/2011
• Published: 07/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Fortinet Inc.
• Inventors: Subramaniam, Sridhar, Talaugon, Wilson, Chin, Bill, Aaronson, Itai
• Granted Patent: US 8,412,982 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/4.11
• 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

Methods and systems for facilitating fault tolerance in a non-hot-standby configuration of a network routing system are provided. According to one embodiment, a failover method is provided. One or more processing engines of a network routing system are configured to function as active processing engines, each of which having one or more software contexts. A control blade is configured to monitor the active processing engines. One or more of the processing engines are identified to function as non-hot-standby processing engines, each of which having no pre-created software contexts corresponding to the software contexts of the active processing engines. The control blade monitors the active processing engines. Responsive to detecting a fault associated with an active processing engine the active processing engine is dynamically replaced with a non-hot-standby processing engine by creating one or more replacement software contexts within the non-hot-standby processing engine corresponding to those of the active processing engine.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented failover method comprising:

configuring one or more of a plurality of processing engines associated with a plurality of server blades of a network routing system to function as one or more active processing engines, each of the one or more active processing engines having one or more software contexts;

configuring a control blade of the plurality of server blades, to monitor the one or more active processing engines;

identifying one or more of the plurality of processing engines to function as one or more non-hot-standby processing engines, each of the one or more non-hot-standby processing engines having no pre-created software contexts corresponding to the software contexts of the one or more active processing engines;

monitoring, by the control blade, the one or more active processing engines; and

responsive to detecting a fault associated with an active processing engine of the one or more active processing engines, dynamically replacing the active processing engine with a non-hot-standby processing engine of the one or more non-hot-standby processing engines by creating one or more replacement software contexts within the non-hot-standby processing engine corresponding to the one or more software contexts of the active processing engine.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the fault comprises a link failure to or from the active processing engine.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the fault comprises a hardware or software failure associated with the active processing engine.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein one of the one or more software contexts of the active processing engine includes a set of objects implementing a virtual router (VR).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said dynamically replacing the active processing engine with the non-hot-standby processing engines involves use of a network-management protocol.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the network-management protocol comprises Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising monitoring, by the control blade, a health of the one or more active processing engines by tracking keep-alive messages received from the one or more active processing engines.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said dynamically replacing the active processing engine with the non-hot-standby processing engine involves use of a transaction-based commit model.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the active processing engine and the non-hot-standby processing engine comprise substantially identical processing engines.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said dynamically replacing the active processing engine with a non-hot-standby processing engine comprises:

identifying virtual private networks (VPNs) and virtual routers (VRs), defined by one or more objects and objects groups, that were operating on the active processing engine prior to detection of the fault, and

recreating the VPNs and VRs within the non-hot-standby processing engine.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the fault comprises failure of one or more of the VPNs or VRs.

12. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium tangibly embodying a set of instructions, which when executed by one or more processors associated with a control blade of a plurality of server blades of a network routing system or a plurality of processing engines of the plurality of server blades cause the one or more processors to perform a failover method comprising:

configuring one or more of the plurality of processing engines to function as one or more active processing engines, each of the one or more active processing engines having one or more software contexts;

identifying one or more of the plurality of processing engines to function as one or more non-hot-standby processing engines, each of the one or more non-hot-standby processing engines having no pre-created software contexts corresponding to the software contexts of the one or more active processing engines;

monitoring, by the control blade, the one or more active processing engines; and

responsive to detecting a fault associated with an active processing engine of the one or more active processing engines, dynamically replacing the active processing engine with a non-hot-standby processing engine of the one or more non-hot-standby processing engines by creating one or more replacement software contexts within the non-hot-standby processing engine corresponding to the one or more software contexts of the active processing engine.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the fault comprises a link failure to or from the active processing engine.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the fault comprises a hardware or software failure associated with the active processing engine.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein one of the one or more software contexts of the active processing engine includes a set of objects implementing a virtual router (VR).

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein said dynamically replacing the active processing engine with the non-hot-standby processing engines involves use of a network-management protocol.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the network-management protocol comprises Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the method further comprises monitoring a health of the one or more active processing engines by tracking keep-alive messages received from the one or more active processing engines.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein said dynamically replacing the active processing engine with the non-hot-standby processing engine involves use of a transaction-based commit model.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the active processing engine and the non-hot-standby processing engine comprise substantially identical processing engines.

21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein said dynamically replacing the active processing engine with a non-hot-standby processing engine comprises:

identifying virtual private networks (VPNs) and virtual routers (VRs), defined by one or more objects and objects groups, that were operating on the active processing engine prior to detection of the fault, and

recreating the VPNs and VRs within the non-hot-standby processing engine.

22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 21, wherein the fault comprises failure of one or more of the VPNs or VRs.