Method and system for layer 2 manipulator and forwarder

• US 8,325,733 B2
• Filed: 09/07/2010
• Issued: 12/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Exafer, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Exafer, Ltd.
• Inventors: Zakai, Avinoam, Harel, Amir, Lelcuk, Alon, NOSSENSON, Ronit
• Primary Examiner(s): ABELSON, RONALD B
• Application Number:
  US12/876,910
• Publication Number:
  US 20110058549A1
• Time in Patent Office: 819 Days
• Field of Search: 370229-231, 370/235, 370/236, 370/389, 370/392, 370/395.3
• US Class Current: 370/395.3
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2483 involving identification of individual flows
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/31 by tagging of packets, e.g. using discard eligibility [DE] bits

Abstract

The disclosure describes method and system for forwarding frames of a flow via a layer 2 forwarder and manipulator (L2FM) for improving network utilization and improving users experience by reducing the latency associated with the flow. When a new flow is identified, forward control information for frames of the new flow is obtained. The forward control information can include re-writing of at least one field in an original header of the frames of the new flow. At least one field in an original header of the frames of the new flow is manipulated according to the obtained forward control information, and the manipulated frames of the new flow are forwarded accordingly.

Claims

1. A layer 2 forwarder and manipulator

(L2FM) located in a layer 2 network and serves a plurality of networks entities, the L2FM comprising:

a flow identifier;

one or more flow managers; and

a forward-flow manager;

wherein the flow identifier receives a plurality of frames, from a plurality of entities, identifies one or more flows and accordingly, associates a flow to a flow manager out of the one or more flow managers and forwards the flow frames to the associated flow manager;

wherein per each new flow the flow manager, obtains forwarding control information for the new flow from a remote-admission-and-information controller (RAIC) and based on the obtained information, defines rules for forwarding the flow frames, and assigns the forwarding rules and the flow frames to the forward-flow manager, wherein the flow manager, based on the received frame of the flow, obtains the forwarding control information by selecting the RAIC from one or more different RAICs and the RAIC is an external entity to the network served by the L2FM; and

wherein the forward-flow manager, handles the flow frames and forwards the flow frames to an appropriate port based on the forwarding rules.

2. The L2FM of claim 1, wherein at least part of the forwarding-control information is obtained from the selected RAIC after transferring one or more frames of the new flow toward the selected RAIC.

3. The L2FM of claim 1, wherein the RAIC can instruct the L2FM to transfer one or more frames of the new flow toward another entity for further analysis.

4. The L2FM of claim 1, wherein the L2FM send instruction data to another RAIC.

5. The L2FM of claim 1, wherein the communication with the RAIC is done out of band.

6. The L2FM of claim 1 wherein at least part of the forwarding-control information is embedded in the frames of the flow.

7. L2FM of claim 1, wherein the selected RAIC is a virtual member in the Layer 2 network.

8. The L2FM of claim 1, wherein at least portion of the forwarding control information is embedded in-band.

9. The L2FM of claim 1, wherein the forwarding rules comprises re-writing one or more fields in one more of the original headers of at least one of the flow frames.

10. The L2FM of claim 9, wherein re-writing further comprising manipulating the encapsulation casing of the flow.

11. The L2FM of claim 9, wherein the RAIC can instruct the L2FM to copy a frame to plurality of addresses.

12. The L2FM of claim 9, wherein re-writing can manipulate uni-cast frames to multicast or broadcast frames and vice versa.

13. The L2FM of claim 11, wherein re-writing comprise converting SCTP frames to TCP frames and vice versa.

14. The L2FM of claim 11, wherein the copy of a frame is done across different virtual networks.

15. The L2FM of claim 12, wherein manipulating uni-cast frames to multicast frames is done across different virtual networks.

16. The L2FM of claim 13 wherein newly created TCP flows can access different virtual interfaces.

17. The L2FM of claim 9, wherein the one or more fields in the original header are associated with the RAIC.

18. The L2FM of claim 9, wherein the original header is a header that was associated to the frame at the host that created the frame.

19. The L2FM of claim 9, wherein the layer 2 network is based on a Ethernet protocol, the layer 3 is based on Internet Protocol, the flow is Peer-to-Peer flow between a user “

A” and

a user “

B”

of the layer 2 network and the RAIC is a Tracker server having virtual address;

then the re-writing one or more fields at the headers within frames received from user “

A” and

targeted toward the virtual address of the Tracker server further comprising replacing the destination IP address of the Tracker address with the IP address of peer ‘

B’

, and replacing the Source IP address of peer ‘

A’

with the virtual address of the Tracker server.

20. The L2FM of claim 17, wherein the forward flow manager manipulated the addresses at the headers within frames received from user “

B” and

targeted toward the address of the tracker server by re-writing the source IP address of the packet received from user “

B”

as the address of the Tracker server and the destination IP address as the IP address of user “

A”

.

21. The L2FM of claim 19, wherein the re-writing further comprising replacing the destination MAC address of the L2FM with the MAC address of peer ‘

A’

, and replacing the source MAC address of peer ‘

B’

with the MAC address of the L2FM.

22. The L2FM of claim 1, wherein the RAIC registers at an administrator of the layer 2 network and gets a virtual address;

configures the L2FM to transfer a first frame, of a new flow, in which the destination address of the first frame is the virtual address, toward the RAIC in order to get forwarding control information;

sends to the L2FM re-writing instruction of the frames and encapsulated header of the flow.

23. The L2FM of claim 1, wherein the RAIC is a network device selected from a group consisting of admission control server and application control server.

24. The L2FM of claim 23, wherein the application control server is a server selected from a group consisting of:

Peer-to-Peer application servers, video streaming servers, and Web servers.

25. The L2FM of claim 1, wherein each RAIC has an account at the L2FM and the accounting information is calculated for the RAIC.

26. A method for forwarding frames of a flow via a layer 2 forwarder and manipulator (L2FM), the method comprising:

a. identifying, at the L2FM, one or more first frames of a new flow;

b. obtaining forward control information for frames of the new flow, wherein the forward control information includes re-writing of at least one field in an original header of the frames of the new flow, wherein obtaining forward control information is done out of band;

c. changing the at least one field in an original header of the frames of the new flow according to the obtained forward control information; and

d. forwarding the frames of the new flow according to the forward control information;

wherein at least portion of the control information is obtained from a remote-admission-and-information controller (RAIC).

27. The method of claim 26, wherein obtaining forward control information is done by sending the one or more first frames toward the RAIC.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein the original header is a header that was associated to the frame at the host that created the frame.

29. The method of claim 26, wherein at least portion of the control information is embedded in-band.

30. The method of claim 26, wherein one or more of the fields in the original headers is associated with the RAIC.

31. The method of claim 26, wherein forwarding the flow frames according to the forward control information further comprising re-writing the IP header of the original frame by re-writing the virtual address of the RAIC as the source IP address of the flow frames instead of the destination IP address.

32. The method of claim 26, wherein the RAIC is a network device selected from a group consisting of admission control server and application control server.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein the application control server is a server selected from a group consisting of:

Peer-to-Peer application servers, video streaming servers, and Web servers.

34. The method of claim 26, wherein the RAIC can instruct the L2FM to transfer one or more frames of the new flow toward another entity for further analysis.

35. The method of claim 26, wherein re-writing further comprising manipulating the encapsulation casing of the flow.

36. The method of claim 26, wherein the RAIC instructs the L2FM to copy a frame to plurality of addresses

37. The method of claim 26, wherein re-writing can manipulate uni-cast frames to multicast or broadcast frames and vice versa.

38. The method of claim 26, wherein copy a frame is done across different virtual networks.

39. The method of claim 26, wherein manipulating uni-cast frames to multicast frames is done across different virtual networks.

40. A layer 2 forwarder and manipulator (L2FM) located in a layer 2 network and serves a plurality of networks entities, the L2FM comprising:

a flow identifier;

one or more flow managers; and

a forward-flow manager;

wherein the flow identifier receives a plurality of frames, from a plurality of entities, identifies one or more flows and accordingly, associates a flow to a flow manager out of the one or more flow managers and forwards the flow frames to the associated flow manager;

wherein per each new flow the flow manager, obtains forwarding control information for the new flow from a remote-admission-and-information controller (RAIC) and based on the obtained information, defines rules for forwarding the flow frames, and assigns the forwarding rules and the flow frames to the forward-flow manager, wherein the flow manager, based on the received frame of the flow, obtains the forwarding control information by selecting the RAIC from one or more different RAICs and wherein at least part of the forwarding-control information is obtained from the selected RAIC after transferring one or more frames of the new flow toward the selected RAIC; and

wherein the forward-flow manager, handles the flow frames and forwards the flow frames to an appropriate port based on the forwarding rules.

41. A layer 2 forwarder and manipulator (L2FM) located in a layer 2 network and serves a plurality of networks entities, the L2FM comprising:

a flow identifier;

one or more flow managers; and

a forward-flow manager;

wherein the flow identifier receives a plurality of frames, from a plurality of entities, identifies one or more flows and accordingly, associates a flow to a flow manager out of the one or more flow managers and forwards the flow frames to the associated flow manager;

wherein per each new flow the flow manager, obtains forwarding control information for the new flow from a remote-admission-and-information controller (RAIC) and based on the obtained information, defines rules for forwarding the flow frames, and assigns the forwarding rules and the flow frames to the forward-flow manager, wherein the flow manager, based on the received frame of the flow, obtains the forwarding control information by selecting the RAIC from one or more different RAICs and the RAIC can instruct the L2FM to transfer one or more frames of the new flow toward another entity for further analysis; and

wherein the forward-flow manager, handles the flow frames and forwards the flow frames to an appropriate port based on the forwarding rules.

42. A layer 2 forwarder and manipulator (L2FM) located in a layer 2 network and serves a plurality of networks entities, the L2FM comprising:

a flow identifier;

one or more flow managers; and

a forward-flow manager;

wherein the flow identifier receives a plurality of frames, from a plurality of entities, identifies one or more flows and accordingly, associates a flow to a flow manager out of the one or more flow managers and forwards the flow frames to the associated flow manager;

wherein per each new flow the flow manager, obtains forwarding control information for the new flow from a remote-admission-and-information controller (RAIC) and based on the obtained information, defines rules for forwarding the flow frames, and assigns the forwarding rules and the flow frames to the forward-flow manager, wherein the flow manager, based on the received frame of the flow, obtains the forwarding control information by selecting the RAIC from one or more different RAICs and the L2FM send instruction data to another RAIC; and

wherein the forward-flow manager, handles the flow frames and forwards the flow frames to an appropriate port based on the forwarding rules.