SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROVIDING CONTAINER ATTRIBUTES AS PART OF OAM TECHNIQUES

• US 20190089651A1
• Filed: 09/19/2017
• Published: 03/21/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Pignataro, Carlos M., Nainar, Nagendra Kumar
• Granted Patent: US 10,791,065 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/74 Address processing for routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/3009 Header conversion, routing tables or routing tags

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for providing container specific information as part of in-situ OAM, SRH or NSH of a data packet in order to provide a more holistic overview of a path traversed by a data packet in a network. In one aspect of the present disclosure, a method of providing container specific information includes receiving a data packet at a corresponding container; determining identification information of the corresponding container; modifying the data packet to include the container specific information to yield a modified data packet; and forwarding the modified data packet to a next destination based on destination information included in the data packet.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a data packet at a corresponding container;

determining identification information of the corresponding container;

modifying the data packet to include the container specific information to yield a modified data packet; and

forwarding the modified data packet to a next destination based on destination information included in the data packet.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining physical host information corresponding to a physical host on which the corresponding container is running; and

modifying the data packet to include the physical host information.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the identification information of the corresponding container includes a cgroup and a namespace of the corresponding container.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the identification information of the corresponding container includes a geo-location of the corresponding container, a cost of the container and a state of the corresponding container.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the state of the corresponding container indicates whether the corresponding container is a passive container that is in test mode or an active container.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the physical host information includes a node ID of the physical host, resource utilization parameters of the physical host with respect to a CPU, a memory of the physical host.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein if the corresponding container is the last container performing the determining, the receiving, the modifying and the forwarding, the method further comprises:

transmitting the modified packet to a network management system server to be used in managing the plurality of containers.

8. A system comprising:

one or more processors; and

at least one memory configured to store computer-readable instructions, which when executed by the one or more processors, configure the one or more processors to;

receive a data packet at a corresponding container;

determine identification information of the corresponding container;

modify the data packet to include the container specific information to yield a modified data packet; and

forward the modified data packet to a next destination based on destination information included in the data packet.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the execution of the computer-readable instruction by the one or more processors, further configure the one or more processors to:

determine physical host information corresponding to a physical host on which the corresponding container is running; and

modify the data packet to include the physical host information.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the identification information of the corresponding container includes a cgroup and a namespace of the corresponding container.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the identification information of the corresponding container includes a geo-location of the corresponding container, a cost of the container and a state of the corresponding container.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the state of the corresponding container indicates whether the corresponding container is a passive container that is in test mode or an active container.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the physical host information includes a node ID of the physical host, resource utilization parameters of the physical host with respect to a CPU and a memory of the physical host.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein

the system is a server on which the corresponding container is instantiated, and

the corresponding container is configured to provide a plurality of service functions over at least one server.

15. The system of claim 8, wherein a portion of a header of the data packet is modified to include the container specific information.

16. The system of claim 8, wherein the header is one of:

a segment routing header;

a network service header;

or

an in-situ operation, administration and management header.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-readable instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:

receive a data packet at a corresponding container;

determine identification information of the corresponding container;

modify the data packet to include the container specific information to yield a modified data packet; and

forward the modified data packet to a next destination based on destination information included in the data packet.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the execution of the computer-readable instruction by the one or more processors, further configure the one or more processors to:

determine physical host information corresponding to a physical host on which the corresponding container is running; and

modify the data packet to include the physical host information.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the identification information of the corresponding container includes a cgroup, a namespace of the corresponding container, a geo-location of the corresponding container, a cost of the container and a state of the corresponding container.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, the physical host information includes a node ID of the physical host, resource utilization parameters of the physical host with respect to a CPU and a memory of the physical host.