Method and system for active fabric management using unicast reachability monitoring

• US 9,876,700 B2
• Filed: 06/16/2016
• Issued: 01/23/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Arista Networks, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Arista Networks, Inc.
• Inventors: Rusak, Tal, Duda, Kenneth James
• Primary Examiner(s): Ly, Anh-Vu
• Assistant Examiner(s): REYES ORTIZ, HECTOR E
• Application Number:
  US15/184,708
• Publication Number:
  US 20160294659A1
• Time in Patent Office: 586 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0811 by checking connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/555 Error detection

Abstract

A method for active network fabric management. The method includes receiving a probe packet by a termination beacon, where the probe packet is associated with a stream, the stream is identified using an origin beacon identification (ID) for an origin beacon, a stream source IP address, a stream destination IP address, an L2 origin interface, and a TTL value or an IP Hop value. The method further includes generating, after receiving the probe packet and after the expiration of a probe rate request (PRR) refresh timer, a rate control packet (RCP) by the termination beacon where the RCP includes a PRR for the stream, and sending the RCP to the origin beacon using an origin beacon IP address, where the origin beacon IP address is different than the stream source IP address.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed by a processor perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving a probe packet by a termination beacon, wherein the probe packet comprises a probe packet header and probe data, wherein the probe packet header comprises a stream source Internet Protocol (IP) address for a first stream of a plurality of streams and the probe data comprises an origin beacon IP address;

generating, after receiving the probe packet, a rate control packet (RCP) by the termination beacon, wherein the RCP comprises a first requested probe rate (RPR) for the first stream and a second RPR for a second stream of the plurality of streams; and

sending the RCP to an origin beacon using the origin beacon IP address, wherein the origin beacon IP address is different than the stream source IP address.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, the method further comprising:

updating, by the termination beacon and after receiving the probe packet, an ingress stream table (IST) entry of an IST for the first stream to include a time the probe packet was received;

marking the first stream as stale in the IST if another probe packet for the first stream is not received by the termination beacon prior to the expiration of a probe rate request (PRR) refresh timer; and

deleting the IST entry for the first stream when the first stream is marked as stale and another probe packet for the first stream is not received by the termination beacon prior to the expiration of a time limit.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first RPR corresponds to a first non-stale stream in an ingress stream table (IST) and the second RPR corresponds to a second non-stale stream in the IST, and wherein the RCP comprises a termination beacon IP address.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, the method further comprising:

updating, by the termination beacon and after receiving the probe packet, counter information and stream probes timing information in an ingress stream statistics table (ISST) entry of an ISST for the first stream; and

marking the first stream as dormant in the ISST if another probe packet for the first stream is not received by the termination beacon prior to the expiration of an ISST timer for the first stream.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first RPR specifies a requested rate at which the termination beacon wants to receive probe packets for the first stream from the origin beacon.

6. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the termination beacon is implemented on a network device switch.

7. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed by a processor perform a method, the method comprising:

generating, by a beacon, a first probe packet for a first stream of a plurality of streams, wherein the first probe packet comprises a first probe packet header and first packet probe data, wherein the probe first packet header comprises a stream source IP address for a first stream of a plurality of streams and the first packet probe data comprises a first origin beacon IP address corresponding to the beacon;

transmitting the first probe packet from the beacon to a remote termination beacon; and

receiving, a first rate control packet (RCP) from the remote termination beacon, wherein the first RCP comprises a requested probe rate (RPR) for the first stream;

receiving a second probe packet by the beacon and from a remote origin beacon, wherein the second probe packet is associated with a second stream;

generating, after receiving the second probe packet and after the expiration of a probe rate request (PRR) refresh timer, a second RCP by the beacon wherein the second RCP comprises a second RPR for the second stream; and

sending the second RCP to the remote origin beacon using a second origin beacon IP address corresponding to the remote origin beacon.

8. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the beacon is implemented on a network device.

9. A method, comprising:

receiving a probe packet by a termination beacon, wherein the probe packet comprises a probe packet header and probe data, wherein the probe packet header comprises a stream source Internet Protocol (IP) address for a first stream of a plurality of streams and the probe data comprises an origin beacon IP address;

generating, after receiving the probe packet, a rate control packet (RCP) by the termination beacon, wherein the RCP comprises a first requested probe rate (RPR) for the first stream and a second RPR for a second stream of the plurality of streams; and

sending the RCP to an origin beacon using the origin beacon IP address, wherein the origin beacon IP address is different than the stream source IP address.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

updating, by the termination beacon and after receiving the probe packet, an ingress stream table (IST) entry of an IST for the first stream to include a time the probe packet was received;

marking the first stream as stale in the IST if another probe packet for the first stream is not received by the termination beacon prior to the expiration of a probe rate request (PRR) refresh timer; and

deleting the IST entry for the first stream when the first stream is marked as stale and another probe packet for the first stream is not received by the termination beacon prior to the expiration of a time limit.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising, wherein the first RPR corresponds to a first non-stale stream in an ingress stream table (IST) and the second RPR corresponds to a second non-stale stream in the IST, and wherein the RCP comprises a termination beacon IP address.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

updating, by the termination beacon and after receiving the probe packet, counter information and stream probes timing information in an ingress stream statistics table (ISST) entry of an ISST for the first stream; and

marking the first stream as dormant in the ISST if another probe packet for the first stream is not received by the termination beacon prior to the expiration of an ISST timer for the first stream.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the first RPR specifies a requested rate at which the termination beacon wants to receive probe packets for the first stream from the origin beacon.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the termination beacon is implemented on a network device.

15. A system, comprising:

a computer hardware processor;

a memory, accessible to the computer hardware processor and storing a termination beacon,

wherein the termination beacon executes on the computer hardware processor and is configured to;

receive a probe packet, wherein the probe packet comprises a probe packet header and probe data, wherein the probe packet header comprises a stream source Internet Protocol (IP) address for a first stream of a plurality of streams and the probe data comprises an origin beacon IP address;

generate, after receiving the probe packet, a rate control packet (RCP), wherein the RCP comprises a first requested probe rate (RPR) for the first stream and a second RPR for a second stream of the plurality of streams; and

send the RCP to an origin beacon using the origin beacon IP address, wherein the origin beacon IP address is different than the stream source IP address.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the memory further stores at least a portion of an ingress stream table (IST), and wherein the termination beacon is further configured to:

update, after receiving the probe packet, an IST entry of the IST for the first stream to include a time the probe packet was received;

marking the first stream as stale in the IST if another probe packet for the first stream is not received by the termination beacon prior to the expiration of a probe rate request (PRR) refresh timer; and

deleting the IST entry for the first stream when the first stream is marked as stale and another probe packet for the first stream is not received by the termination beacon prior to the expiration of a time limit.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the memory further stores at least a portion of an ingress stream table (IST), wherein the first RPR corresponds to a first non-stale stream in the IST and the second RPR corresponds to a second non-stale stream in the IST, and wherein the RCP comprises a termination beacon IP address.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the memory further stores at least a portion of an ingress stream statistics table (ISST), and wherein the termination beacon is further configured to:

update, after receiving the probe packet, counter information and stream probes timing information in an ISST entry of the ISST for the first stream; and

mark the first stream as dormant in the ISST if another probe packet for the first stream is not received by the termination beacon prior to the expiration of an ISST timer for the first stream.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the first RPR specifies a requested rate at which the termination beacon wants to receive probe packets for the first stream from the origin beacon.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the termination beacon is implemented on a network device.