DYNAMIC OPTIMIZATION OF ADVERTISEMENT PACKETS

• US 20150117215A1
• Filed: 10/30/2013
• Published: 04/30/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Aruba Networks Incorporated (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Nagaraja, Harsha, Chandrashekhar, Sridhar, Verma, Shishir, Joshi, Vedamurthy
• Granted Patent: US 9,438,439 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/236
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/185 with management of multicast group membership
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1895 for short real-time information, e.g. alarms, notifications, alerts, updates
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control

Abstract

In general, in one aspect, embodiments relate to a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method. The method includes receiving, by a controller, a first plurality of multicast advertisement packets from a first networking device on an external network, wherein the plurality of multicast advertisement packets are received at a first frequency, storing, by the controller, one of the first plurality of multicast advertisement packets in an advertisement packet repository, and transmitting, by the controller, information in the one of the plurality of advertisement packets on an internal network at a second frequency, wherein the second frequency is less frequent than the first frequency.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method comprising:

receiving, by a controller, a first plurality of multicast advertisement packets from a first networking device on an external network, wherein the plurality of multicast advertisement packets are received at a first frequency;

storing, by the controller, one of the first plurality of multicast advertisement packets in an advertisement packet repository; and

transmitting, by the controller, information in the one of the plurality of advertisement packets on an internal network at a second frequency, wherein the second frequency is less frequent than the first frequency.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, the method further comprising:

receiving, by the controller, a second plurality of multicast advertisement packets from a second networking device on the external network;

determining, by the controller, that an attribute of a second multicast advertisement packet of the second plurality of multicast advertisement packets matches an attribute of the first multicast advertisement packet of the first plurality of multicast advertisement packets; and

validating the second networking device in response to the determining.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein validating the second networking device comprises:

sending an alert indicating that the second networking device is invalid in response to a determination that the second networking device is attempting a denial-of-service attack.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein transmitting the information in the one of the plurality of advertisement packets on the internal network at the second frequency comprises:

determining the second frequency based on a multicast throttling rule set.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein storing the one of the first plurality of multicast advertisement packets in the advertisement packet repository comprises:

storing the one of the first plurality of multicast advertisement packets in the advertisement packet repository in response to a determination that the advertisement packet repository does not comprise a copy of the first multicast advertisement packet.

6. A system comprising:

an advertisement packet repository;

a controller communicatively coupled to an external network and an internal network configured to;

receive a first plurality of multicast advertisement packets from a first networking device on the external network, wherein the plurality of multicast advertisement packets are received at a first frequency, and

store one of the first plurality of multicast advertisement packets in the advertisement packet repository; and

a transmission engine configured to;

transmit information in the one of the first multicast advertisement packet on the internal network at a second frequency, wherein the second frequency is less frequent than the first frequency.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the controller is further configured to:

receive a second plurality of multicast advertisement packets from a second networking device on the external network;

determine that an attribute of a second multicast advertisement packet of the second plurality of multicast advertisement packets matches an attribute of the first multicast advertisement packet of the first plurality of multicast advertisement packets; and

validate the second networking device in response to the determining.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein validating the second networking device comprises:

sending an alert indicating that the second networking device is invalid in response to a determination that the second networking device is attempting a denial-of-service attack.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein transmitting the information in the one of the plurality of advertisement packets on the internal network at the second frequency comprises:

determining the second frequency based on a multicast throttling rule set.

10. The system of claim 6, wherein storing the one of the first plurality of multicast advertisement packets in the advertisement packet repository comprises:

storing the one of the first plurality of multicast advertisement packets in the advertisement packet repository in response to a determination that the advertisement packet repository does not comprise a copy of the first multicast advertisement packet.

11. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method comprising:

receiving, by a controller, a plurality of multicast advertisement packets from a networking device on an external network;

storing, by the controller, one of the plurality of multicast advertisement packets in an advertisement packet repository;

converting, by the controller, the one of the plurality of multicast advertisement packets into a unicast advertisement packet; and

transmitting, by the controller, the unicast advertisement packet to an endpoint system on an internal network.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein converting the one of the plurality of multicast advertisement packets into a unicast advertisement packet and sending the unicast advertisement packet to an endpoint system are in response to receiving, by the controller, a multicast solicitation packet from the endpoint system on the internal network.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein converting the one of the plurality of multicast advertisement packets into a unicast advertisement packet and sending the unicast advertisement packet to an endpoint system are in response to determining, by the controller, that the endpoint system has recently connected to the internal network.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the multicast advertisement packet is a multicast router advertisement packet comprising a set of internet protocol address ranges reachable via the networking device.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the controller refrains from transmitting the one of the plurality of multicast advertisement packets on the internal network.

16. A system comprising:

an advertisement packet repository;

a controller communicatively coupled to an external network and an internal network configured to;

receive a plurality of multicast advertisement packets from a networking device on the external network,

store one of the plurality of multicast advertisement packets in the advertisement packet repository, and

convert the one of the plurality of multicast advertisement packets into a unicast advertisement packet; and

a transmission engine configured to;

transmit the unicast advertisement packet to an endpoint system on the internal network.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the controller is configured to convert the one of the plurality of multicast advertisement packets into a unicast advertisement packet in response to receiving a multicast solicitation packet from the endpoint system on the internal network.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the controller is configured to convert the one of the plurality of multicast advertisement packets into a unicast advertisement packet in response to determining that the endpoint system has recently connected to the internal network.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the multicast advertisement packet is a multicast router advertisement packet comprising a set of internet protocol address ranges reachable via the networking device.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the controller is further configured to:

refrain from transmitting the one of the plurality of multicast advertisement packets on the internal network.