AUTOMATIC CONFIGURATION OF EXTERNAL SERVICES BASED UPON NETWORK ACTIVITY

• US 20140280488A1
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: VOIT, Eric A., MCDOWALL, John E., PRUSS, Richard M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,392,050 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5022 Workload threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0816 the condition being an adaptation, e.g. in response to network events
• 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 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

System, computer program product, and method to configure an external network based on internal network conditions, by monitoring a load attribute of one or more network flows traversing an ingress port of at least one network element in a software-defined networking (SDN) enabled network, upon determining that the load attribute of a first network element in the SDN enabled network exceeds a predefined threshold, provisioning, by the application, an additional service on the external network, by the application, an additional service on the external network, and extending, by the application, the SDN enabled network to include the additional service on the external network.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method to configure an external network based on internal network conditions, comprising:

monitoring, a load attribute of one or more network flows traversing an ingress port of at least one network element in a software-defined networking (SDN) enabled network;

upon determining that the load attribute of a first network element in the SDN enabled network exceeds a predefined threshold, issuing, by the first network element, a high load notification to an application;

provisioning, by the application, an additional service on the external network; and

extending, by the application, the SDN enabled network to include the additional service on the external network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein monitoring the load attribute comprises:

applying, by the application, an input filter to the ingress port of the at least one network element for monitoring the one or more network flows using an application programming interface (API), the API abstracting a control plane of the network element to permit the application to monitor and control data traffic traversing the network element.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the load attribute comprises each individual load attribute selected from the group comprising:

(i) a number of connections of the ingress port of the at least one network element, (ii) a load of a processor of the at least one network element, (iii) a number of dropped connections of the ingress port of the at least one network element, and (iv) an observed response latency of the one or more data flows traversing the ingress port of the at least one network element.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the SDN enabled network is a private cloud network, wherein provisioning the additional service on the external network comprises:

instantiating at least one virtual machine sourced from a public cloud computing provider; and

calling external configuration tools to instantiate services on the at least one virtual machine.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein extending the SDN enabled network to include the additional service on the external network comprises:

altering, by the application, a routing information base of the at least one network element to distribute traffic across the extended SDN enabled network.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

upon determining that the load attribute of the first network element falls below the threshold, decommissioning the additional service to remove the additional service from the SDN enabled network.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is executed on the at least one network element.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is a distributed application comprising a plurality of instances of the application, wherein each of the plurality of instances are communicably coupled to determine an optimal load of the at least one network element based on each individual factor comprising:

(i) a temperature of a data center housing the at least one network element, (ii) an electric grid load, (iii) a response time of a second application, a (iv) a client identifier.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of network elements in the SDN enabled network each comprise a respective input filter and a respective API for monitoring load attributes of data traffic traversing the plurality of network devices.

10. A system, comprising:

one or more computer processors; and

a memory containing a program, which when executed by the one or more computer processors, performs an operation to configure an external network based on internal network conditions, the operation comprising;

monitoring, a load attribute of one or more network flows traversing an ingress port of at least one network element in a software-defined networking (SDN) enabled network;

upon determining that the load attribute of a first network element in the SDN enabled network exceeds a predefined threshold, issuing, by the first network element, a high load notification to an application;

provisioning, by the application, an additional service on the external network; and

extending, by the application, the SDN enabled network to include the additional service on the external network.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein monitoring the load attribute comprises:

applying, by the application, an input filter to the ingress port of the at least one network element for monitoring the one or more network flows using an application programming interface (API), the API abstracting a control plane of the network element to permit the application to monitor and control data traffic traversing the network element.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the load attribute comprises each individual load attribute selected from the group comprising:

(i) a number of connections of the ingress port of the at least one network element, (ii) a load of a processor of the at least one network element, (iii) a number of dropped connections of the ingress port of the at least one network element, and (iv) an observed response latency of the one or more data flows traversing the ingress port of the at least one network element.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the SDN enabled network is a private cloud network, wherein provisioning the additional service on the external network comprises:

instantiating at least one virtual machine sourced from a public cloud computing provider; and

calling external configuration tools to instantiate services on the at least one virtual machine.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein extending the SDN enabled network to include the additional service on the external network comprises:

altering, by the application, a routing information base of the at least one network element to distribute traffic across the extended SDN enabled network.

15. The system of claim 10, the operation further comprising:

upon determining that the load attribute of the first network element falls below the threshold, decommissioning the additional service to remove the additional service from the SDN enabled network.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the application is executed on the at least one network element.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the application is a distributed application comprising a plurality of instances of the application, wherein each of the plurality of instances are communicably coupled to determine an optimal load of the at least one network element based on each individual factor comprising:

(i) a temperature of a data center housing the at least one network element, (ii) an electric grid load, (iii) a response time of a second application, a (iv) a client identifier.

18. The system of claim 10, wherein a plurality of network elements in the SDN enabled network each comprise a respective input filter and a respective API for monitoring load attributes of data traffic traversing the plurality of network devices.

19. A computer program product to configure external networks based on internal network conditions, comprising:

a computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code embedded therewith, the computer-readable program code comprising;

computer-readable program code configured to monitor a load attribute of one or more network flows traversing an ingress port of at least one network element in a software-defined networking (SDN) enabled network;

computer-readable program code configured to, upon determining that the load attribute of a first network element in the SDN enabled network exceeds a predefined threshold, issue, by the first network element, a high load notification to an application;

computer-readable program code configured to provision, by the application, an additional service on the external network; and

computer-readable program code configured to extend, by the application, the SDN enabled network to include the additional service on the external network.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein monitoring the load attribute comprises:

applying, by the application, an input filter to the ingress port of the at least one network element for monitoring the one or more network flows using an application programming interface (API), the API abstracting a control plane of the network element to permit the application to monitor and control data traffic traversing the network element.

21. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the load attribute comprises each individual load attribute selected from the group comprising:

(i) a number of connections of the ingress port of the at least one network element, (ii) a load of a processor of the at least one network element, (iii) a number of dropped connections of the ingress port of the at least one network element, and (iv) an observed response latency of the one or more data flows traversing the ingress port of the at least one network element.

22. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the SDN enabled network is a private cloud network, wherein provisioning the additional service on the external network comprises:

instantiating at least one virtual machine sourced from a public cloud computing provider; and

calling external configuration tools to instantiate services on the at least one virtual machine.

23. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein extending the SDN enabled network to include the additional service on the external network comprises:

altering, by the application, a routing information base of the at least one network element to distribute traffic across the extended SDN enabled network.

24. The computer program product of claim 19, the computer-readable program code further comprising:

further comprising;

computer-readable program code configured to, upon determining that the load attribute of the first network element falls below the threshold, decommission the additional service to remove the additional service from the SDN enabled network.

25. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the application is executed on the at least one network element.

26. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the application is a distributed application comprising a plurality of instances of the application, wherein each of the plurality of instances are communicably coupled to determine an optimal load of the at least one network element based on each individual factor comprising:

(i) a temperature of a data center housing the at least one network element, (ii) an electric grid load, (iii) a response time of a second application, a (iv) a client identifier.

27. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein a plurality of network elements in the SDN enabled network each comprise a respective input filter and a respective API for monitoring load attributes of data traffic traversing the plurality of network devices.