Distributed and disjoint forwarding and routing system and method

• US 7,606,140 B2
• Filed: 08/28/2003
• Issued: 10/20/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: WSOU Investments, LLC (WSOU Holdings, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Golla, Prasad N.
• Primary Examiner(s): Orgad, Edan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ahmed, Salman
• Application Number:
  US10/651,134
• Publication Number:
  US 20050050136A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,245 Days
• Field of Search: 370/219, 370/220, 370/218, 370/401, 370/402, 370/386, 370/465, 370/216, 370/229, 370/238, 370/419, 370/395.54, 370/351, 370/319, 370/395.31, 370/230, 714/4, 714/43, 709/238, 398/30
• US Class Current: 370/216
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/22 Alternate routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/24 Multipath
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/28 using route fault recovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/54 Organization of routing tables
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/60 Router architectures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/64 using an overlay routing layer

Abstract

A distributed and disjoint forwarding and routing system and method operable with a routing element having a scalable cluster-based architecture, wherein the control plane and data plane are loosely-coupled for effectuating non-disruptive switchover in the event of a failure. The routing element includes a partitionable data plane having one or more forwarding tables and a partitionable control plane having one or more routing tables operating under control of at least one routing protocol process. One or more update buffers are provided with respect to the forwarding and routing tables. A partitionable update agent module is disposed between the data and control planes for mediating the updating and coordination of the forward tables based on the routing tables.

Claims

1. A router, comprising:

a partitioned data plane including a plurality of forwarding tables, each forwarding table including forwarding information that effectuates a data forwarding process through said router;

a partitioned control plane including a plurality of routing tables operating under control of at least one routing protocol process, said routing tables including information that effectuates routing decisions with respect to said data forwarding process;

a partitioned update agent plane coupled to both said partitioned data plane and said partitioned control plane, said partitioned update agent plane comprising;

a control plane update agent module that maintains at least one redundant set of routing table information in a plurality of control plane update buffers that are coupled to said plurality of routing tables, wherein said control plane update buffers are located on said control plane, and wherein said control plane update agent module synchronizes said routing tables to each other; and

a data plane update agent module operably coupled to said control plane update agent module to coordinate said forwarding information with said routing table information in association with a plurality of data plane update buffers that are coupled to said forwarding tables, wherein said data plane update buffers are located on said data plane, and wherein said forwarding tables are maintained, updated, and redundantly engineered independently of failures on said routing tables.

2. The router as set forth in claim 1, wherein said data forwarding process continues to proceed in an event of failure based on information stored in at least one of said data plane update buffers and said control plane update buffers.

3. The router as set forth in claim 2, wherein said event of failure comprises a failure associated with said partitioned data plane.

4. The router as set forth in claim 2, wherein said event of failure comprises a failure associated with said partitioned control plane.

5. The router as set forth in claim 2, wherein said partitioned data plane comprises a plurality of data plane nodes, each having at least one forwarding table and at least one data plane update buffer.

6. The router as set forth in claim 5, wherein said plurality of data plane nodes are organized into a scalable cluster.

7. The router as set forth in claim 5, wherein said data plane update agent module comprises a plurality of data plane update agents, each being associated with a data plane node.

8. The router as set forth in claim 5, wherein said plurality of data plane nodes are organized into a distributed network having a topology selected from the group consisting of ring topologies, star topologies, Clos topologies, toroid topologies, hypercube topologies and polyhedron topologies.

9. The router as set forth in claim 2, wherein said partitioned control plane comprises a plurality of control plane nodes, each having at least one routing table and at least one control plane update buffer.

10. The router as set forth in claim 9, wherein said plurality of control plane nodes are organized into a scalable cluster.

11. The router as set forth in claim 9, wherein said control plane update agent module comprises a plurality of control plane update agents, each being associated with a control plane node.

12. The router as set forth in claim 9, wherein said plurality of control plane nodes are organized into a distributed network having a topology selected from the group consisting of ring topologies, star topologies, Clos topologies, toroid topologies, hypercube topologies and polyhedron topologies.

13. A distributed network, comprising:

a first network element that routes data; and

a second network element coupled to said first network element, wherein said first network element and said second network element are each comprised of a router with decoupled control and data planes and a separate update agent plane further comprising a control plane update module that synchronizes a plurality of routing tables to each other on said control plane, whereby forwarding tables are maintained, updated, and redundantly engineered independently of failures on said routing tables,

wherein said router comprises;

a plurality of control plane nodes that effectuate routing process functionality based on control updates from peer elements in said distributed network, each control plane node including a routing information database with routing tables and a control plane update buffer;

a plurality of data plane nodes that forward data based on said routing process functionality, each data plane node including a forwarding information database with forwarding tables and a data plane update buffer; and

the separate update agent plane comprising a control plane update agent that synchronizes said routing tables on said control plane node and a data plane update agent that synchronizes said forwarding tables on said data plane node, wherein said data plane update agents and control plane update agents update said forward information databases and said routing information databases in an asynchronous manner.

14. The distributed network as set forth in claim 13, wherein said plurality of control plane nodes and said plurality of data plane nodes are organized in a logically disjoint, distributed architecture.

15. The distributed network as set forth in claim 13, wherein said distributed architecture comprises a scalable cluster having a topology selected from the group consisting of ring topologies, star topologies, Clos topologies, toroid topologies, hypercube topologies and polyhedron topologies.

16. The distributed network as set forth in claim 13, wherein said data plane update buffers and said control plane update buffers are updated by said data plane update agents and said control plane update agents in an asynchronous manner.

17. The distributed network as set forth in claim 13, wherein said data plane nodes continue to forward data upon detecting a fault condition in at least one of said control plane node.