Distributed routing architecture

• US 8,331,371 B2
• Filed: 12/17/2009
• Issued: 12/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Judge, Alan M., McGaugh, David J., Hamilton, James R., Pietsch, Justin O., O'Meara, David J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Phan, Man
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kavleski, Ryan
• Application Number:
  US12/641,260
• Publication Number:
  US 20110149964A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,090 Days
• Field of Search: 370/392, 370/400, 370/408
• US Class Current: 370/392
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/04 Interdomain routing, e.g. hierarchical routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/30 Routing of multiclass traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/44 Distributed routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/58 Association of routers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/741 Routing in networks with a plurality of addressing schemes, e.g. with both IPv4 and IPv6
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/33 using forward notification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/323 in the physical layer [OSI layer 1]

Abstract

A hierarchical distributed routing architecture including at least three levels, or layers, for receiving, processing and forwarding data packets between network components is provided. The core level router components receive an incoming packet from a network component and identify a distribution level router component based on processing a subset of the destination address associated with the received packet. The distribution level router components receive a forwarded packet and identify a transit level router component based on at least a subset of the destination address associated with the received packet. The transit level router components receive the forwarded packet and forward the packet to a respective network. The mapping of destination addresses to router components of may be managed by a router management component. In some embodiments, mapping of destination address to router components may be based, at least in part, on traffic volumes associated with the mapped destination addresses.

Claims

1. A system for routing packets comprising:

a router management device for associating destination address information to a router hierarchy comprising a plurality of levels, wherein the router management device is configured to, for each level of the router hierarchy, dynamically assign one or more router devices to a portion of incoming packets based at least in part on traffic volume associated with one or more destination addresses of the incoming packets;

one or more router devices corresponding to a first level of the router hierarchy;

one or more router devices corresponding to a second level of the router hierarchy, the second level of the router hierarchy for processing an incoming packet for routing received from at least one of the one or more router devices corresponding to the first level of a router hierarchy, wherein each router device corresponding to the second level is allocated a portion of destination addresses of incoming packets by the router management device, and wherein the portion of destination address is associated with a first subset of destination addresses of incoming packets;

one or more router devices corresponding to a third level of the router hierarchy, the third level of the router hierarchy for processing an incoming packet for routing received from at least one of the one or more router devices corresponding to the second level of a router hierarchy, wherein each router device corresponding to the third level is allocated a portion of destination addresses of incoming packets by the router management device, and wherein the portion of destination address is associated with a second subset of destination addresses of incoming packets;

wherein the one or more router devices corresponding to the first level of a router hierarchy receive, for routing, an incoming packet comprising a destination address, and identify at least one router device corresponding to the second level of the router hierarchy based at least in part on a first subset of the destination address and wherein the at least one router device corresponding to the second level of a router hierarchy identifies at least one router device corresponding to the third level of the router hierarchy based at least in part on a second subset of the destination address of the incoming packet, and wherein the second subset of the destination address is greater than the first subset of the destination address.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more router devices corresponding to a first level of a router hierarchy are selected in accordance with one of random selection, round robin selection, hashing and load balancing.

3. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the destination address corresponds to an IP address.

4. The system as recited in claim 3, wherein the first subset of the IP address corresponds to the eight most significant bits of the IP address.

5. The system as recited in claim 3, wherein the first subset of the IP address corresponds to at least one of the sixteen or twenty four most significant bits of the IP address.

6. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein at least two of the one or more router devices corresponding to a first level of the router hierarchy are implemented in a common physical router device.

7. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein at least two of the one or more router devices corresponding to a second level of the router hierarchy are implemented in a common physical router device.

8. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein at least two of the one or more router devices corresponding to a third level of the router hierarchy are implemented in a common physical router device.

9. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein at least two of a router device of the first level of the router hierarchy, a router device of the second level of the router hierarchy, or a router device of the third level of the router hierarchy are implemented by at least one physical router device.

19. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein two or more of the first set of router devices correspond to a single physical router device.

20. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein two or more of the second set of router devices correspond to a single physical router device.

10. A system for routing packets comprising:

a first set of router devices;

a second set of router devices for routing packets received from the first set of router devices, wherein each of the second set of router devices is dynamically correlated to a portion of destination addresses of incoming packets by a router management device based at least in part on a first subset of destination addresses of incoming packets, and wherein each portion of the destination addresses is determined based at least in part on traffic volumes associated with each portion of the destination addresses;

a third set of router devices for routing packets received from the second set of router devices, wherein each of the third set of router devices is dynamically correlated to a portion of destination addresses of incoming packets by the router management device based at least in part on a second subset of destination addresses of incoming packets, and wherein each portion of the destination addresses is determined based at least in part on traffic volumes associated with each portion of the destination addresses;

wherein the first set of router devices identify a router device from the second set of router devices correlated to an incoming packet comprising a destination address based at least in part on a first subset of the destination address of the incoming packet; and

wherein the second set of router devices identify a router device from the third set of router devices correlated to the incoming packet based at least in part on a second subset of the destination address of the incoming packet.

11. The system as recited in claim 10, wherein each router device from the second set of router devices is correlated to a portion of destination addresses of incoming packets based at least in part on a combination of an association of traffic volumes for each portion of the destination addresses and an equal allocation of remaining destination addresses.

12. The system as recited in claim 10, wherein each router device of the second set of router devices is associated with a threshold number of destination addresses maintainable in a first memory of the router device, and wherein at least one of the second set of router devices is correlated with a portion of destination addresses containing more than the threshold number of destination addresses maintainable in the first memory of the at least one router device.

13. The system as recited in claim 10, wherein each router device from the second set of router devices is correlated to a portion of destination addresses of incoming packets based at least in part on an association of low traffic volumes for destination addresses.

14. The system as recited in claim 10, wherein a plurality of router devices from the second set of router devices are correlated to the same portion of destination addresses.

15. The system as recited in claim 10, wherein first set of router devices are selected in accordance with one of random selection, round robin selection, hash selection and load balancing.

16. The system as recited in claim 10, wherein the destination address corresponds to an IP address.

17. The system as recited in claim 16, wherein the first subset of the IP address corresponds to the eight most significant bits of the IP address.

18. The system as recited in claim 17, wherein the first subset of the IP address corresponds to at least one of the sixteen or twenty four most significant bits of the IP address.

21. The system as recited in claim 10, wherein two or more of the third set of router devices correspond to a single physical router device.

22. The system as recited in claim 10, wherein at least one of the set of first devices, at least one of the second set of devices, and at least one of the third set of router devices correspond to a single physical router device.

23. A method for routing packets comprising:

obtaining a routing request corresponding to a data packet received from a first communication network;

identifying a first router of a first level of a router hierarchy, the first level of the router hierarchy comprising one or more router components;

forwarding the received data packet to the identified first router;

identifying a second router component of a second level of the router hierarchy, wherein the second level of the router hierarchy comprises one or more router components, wherein each of the one or more router components of the second level is dynamically associated with a portion of destination addresses of incoming data packets, and wherein each portion of destination addresses is determined based at least in part on traffic volumes associated with the portion of destination addresses and on a first subset of destination addresses;

forwarding the received data packet to the identified second router; and

identifying a third router component of a third level of the router hierarchy, wherein the third level of the router hierarchy comprises to one or more router components, wherein each of the one or more router components of the third level is dynamically associated with a portion of destination addresses of incoming data packets, and wherein each portion of destination addresses is determined based at least in part on traffic volumes associated with the portion of destination addresses and on a second subset of destination addresses;

wherein identifying the second router of the second level of the router hierarchy is based at least in part on a first subset of a destination address of the received data packet; and

wherein identifying the third router of the third level of the router hierarchy is based at least in part on a second subset of the destination address of the incoming packet.

24. The method as recited in claim 23, wherein each of the one or more router components from the second level of the router hierarchy is associated with a portion of destination addresses of incoming data packets based at least in part on a combination of an association of traffic volumes for destination addresses and an equal allocation of remaining destination addresses.

25. The method as recited in claim 23, wherein each of the one or more router components of the second level of the router hierarchy is associated with a threshold number of destination addresses maintainable in a first memory of the router component, and wherein at least one router component from the second level of the router hierarchy is associated with a portion of destination addresses containing more than the threshold number of destination addresses maintainable in the first memory of the at least one router component.

26. The method as recited in claim 23, wherein each of the one or more router components of the second level of the router hierarchy is associated with a portion of destination addresses of incoming data packets based at least in part on an association of low traffic volumes for destination addresses.

27. The method as recited in claim 23, wherein a plurality of router components from the second set of router components are associated with the same portion of destination addresses.

28. The method as recited in claim 23, wherein first set of router components are selected in accordance with one of random selection, round robin selection, hash selection and load balancing.

29. The method as recited in claim 23, wherein the destination address corresponds to an IP address.