Fault tolerant routing in a non-hot-standby configuration of a network routing system

• US 7,761,743 B2
• Filed: 09/07/2009
• Issued: 07/20/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2002
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Fortinet Inc.
• Inventors: Aaronson, Itai, Subramaniam, Sridhar, Talaugon, Wilson, Chin, Bill
• Primary Examiner(s): Iqbal, Nadeem
• Application Number:
  US12/554,977
• Publication Number:
  US 20100011245A1
• Time in Patent Office: 316 Days
• Field of Search: 714 2- 12, 714/15, 714/16, 714/20, 714/21, 714/25, 714/26, 714/31, 714 37- 39
• US Class Current: 714/21
• 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 method is provided for replacing an active processing engine with a non-hot-standby processing engine. Multiple processing engines within a network routing system are configured. The processing engines include an active processing engine having one or more software contexts, representative of a set of objects implementing a virtual router, for example, and a non-hot-standby processing engine having no pre-created software contexts corresponding to the one or more software contexts. Responsive to determining a fault associated with the active processing engine, the active processing engine is dynamically replaced with the non-hot-standby processing engine by creating replacement software contexts within the non-hot-standby processing engine corresponding to the one or more software contexts.

Claims

1. A method comprising

configuring a plurality of processing engines within a network routing system, the plurality of processing engines including an active processing engine having one or more software contexts and a non-hot-standby processing engine having no pre-created software contexts corresponding to the one or more software contexts;

and

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

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 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, wherein the fault is detected by a control blade of the network routing system.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the control blade monitoring a health of the active processing engine by tracking keep-alive messages received from the active processing engine.

9. 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.

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

11. A method comprising:

responsive to determining the existence of a failed processing engine of a plurality of processing engines of a network routing system, identifying one or more software contexts that were associated with the failed processing engine prior to failure of the failed processing engine; and

dynamically replacing the failed processing engine with a non-hot-standby processing engine of the plurality of processing engines by configuring the non-hot-standby processing engine with one or more replacement software contexts corresponding to the one or more software contexts, wherein prior to the failure, the non-hot-standby processing engine was in a state in which the non-hot-standby processing engine could have replaced one or more others of the plurality of processing engines and was not being actively synchronized with the failed processing engine.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein one of the one or more software contexts includes a set of objects implementing a virtual router (VR).

13. The method of claim 12, wherein a fault indicative of failure of the failed processing engine comprises failure of the VR.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the fault is detected by a control blade of the network routing system.

15. A 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 network routing system or a plurality of processing engines of the network routing engine cause the one or more processors to:

configure the plurality of processing engines, the plurality of processing engines including an active processing engine having one or more software contexts and a non-hot-standby processing engine having no pre-created software contexts corresponding to the one or more software contexts; and

responsive to determining a fault associated with the active processing engine, dynamically replace the active processing engine with the non-hot-standby processing engine by creating replacement software contexts within the non-hot-standby processing engine corresponding to the one or more software contexts.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the fault comprises a link failure to or from the active processing engine.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the fault comprises a hardware or software failure associated with the active processing engine.

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

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the fault is detected by the control blade.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the control blade monitors a health of the active processing engine by tracking keep-alive messages received from the active processing engine.