Techniques to use a network service header to monitor quality of service

• US 10,243,827 B2
• Filed: 09/26/2016
• Issued: 03/26/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Browne, Rory, Chilikin, Andrey
• Primary Examiner(s): Hsu, Alpus
• Assistant Examiner(s): Thai, Camquyen
• Application Number:
  US15/275,833
• Publication Number:
  US 20180091410A1
• Time in Patent Office: 911 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/24 Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers

Abstract

Examples include techniques to use a network service header to monitor Quality of Service (QoS). Examples include implementation of a QoS stamping policy to monitor one or more QoS fields of a network packet routed through nodes arranged to separately provide individual service functions included in a service function chain. A determination is made as to whether the QoS stamping information indicates a consistent QoS configuration in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet at node ingress or node egress of the network packet as routed through the nodes.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

circuitry at a controller that monitors one or more quality of service (QoS) fields of a network packet routed through nodes arranged to separately provide individual service functions (SFs) included in a service function chain (SFC);

policy logic for execution by the circuitry to provide a QoS stamping policy to an SFC classifier to cause the SFC classifier to generate a network service header (NSH) that includes metadata type 2, the metadata type 2 to include QoS stamping information inserted by nodes arranged to separately provide individual SFs included in the SFC;

access logic for execution by the circuitry to access a database arranged to store QoS stamping information inserted by the nodes separately arranged to provide individual SFs in the SFC, the QoS stamping information gathered according to the QoS stamping policy as the network packet is routed through the nodes; and

consistency logic for execution by the circuitry to determine whether the QoS stamping information indicates a consistent QoS configuration in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet at node ingress or node egress of the network packet as routed through the nodes.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, comprising:

the consistency logic to determine that the QoS stamping information indicates an inconsistent QoS configuration in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet and identify which node or nodes have the inconsistent QoS configuration; and

update logic for execution by the circuitry to cause an update to the identified node or nodes to correct the inconsistent QoS configuration in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, the inconsistent QoS configuration in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet comprises different traffic classes indicated in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet at node ingress or node egress of the network packet as routed through the nodes arranged to separately provide individual SFs included in the SFC.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, comprising the QoS stamping policy to indicate a service flow for which the one or more QoS fields of the network packet are to be monitored.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, the one or more QoS fields of the network packet include one or more fields having QoS class identifier (QCI) bits, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.1p bits, differentiated services code point (DSCP) bits or tunnel endpoint ID (TEID) bits.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, the individual SFs included in the SFC comprise at least two of a firewall SF, a virtual router SF, a network address translation (NAT) SF, a session border controller (SBC) SF, a video-optimizer (VO) SF or a content distribution network (CDN) SF.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, comprising a digital display coupled to the circuitry to present a user interface view.

8. At least one non-transitory machine readable medium comprising a plurality of instructions that in response to being executed by a system at a controller that monitors one or more quality of service (QoS) fields of a network packet routed through nodes arranged to separately provide individual service functions (SFs) included in a service function chain (SFC) cause the system to:

provide a QoS stamping policy to an SFC classifier to cause the SFC classifier to generate a network service header (NSH) that includes metadata type 2, the metadata type 2 to include QoS stamping information inserted by nodes arranged to separately provide individual SFs included in the SFC;

access a database arranged to store QoS stamping information inserted by the nodes providing individual SFs in the SFC, the QoS stamping information gathered according to the QoS stamping policy as the network packet is routed through the nodes; and

determine whether the QoS stamping information indicates a consistent QoS configuration in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet at node ingress or node egress of the network packet as routed through the nodes.

9. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, the instructions to further cause the system to:

determine that the QoS stamping information indicates an inconsistent QoS configuration in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet;

identify which node or nodes have the inconsistent QoS configuration; and

cause an update to the identified node or nodes to correct the inconsistent QoS configuration in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet.

10. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, the inconsistent QoS configuration in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet comprises different traffic classes indicated in the one or more QoS fields of the network packet at node ingress or node egress of the network packet as routed through the nodes separately providing individual SFs included in the SFC.

11. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, comprising the QoS stamping policy to indicate a service flow for which the one or more QoS fields of the network packet are to be monitored.

12. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, the one or more QoS fields of the network packet include one or more fields having QoS class identifier (QCI) bits, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.1p bits, differentiated services code point (DSCP) bits or tunnel endpoint ID (TED) bits.

13. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, the individual SFs included in the SFC comprise at least two of a firewall SF, a virtual router SF, a network address translation (NAT) SF, a session border controller (SBC) SF, a video-optimizer (VO) SF or a content distribution network (CDN) SF.

14. A method comprising:

receiving, at a processor circuit, a quality of service (QoS) stamping policy for monitoring one or more QoS fields of a network packet routed through nodes separately providing individual service functions (SFs) in a service function chain (SFC);

generating a network service header (NSH) that includes metadata type 2 based on the QoS stamping policy, the metadata type 2 to include QoS stamping information inserted by nodes arranged to separately provide individual SFs included in the SFC;

encapsulating the network packet with the generated NSH; and

sending the NSH-encapsulated network packet to a first node of the nodes separately providing individual SFs in the SFC.

15. The method of claim 14, comprising the metadata type 2 including:

a service index arranged to be used by the nodes separately providing individual SFs to determine which node is a last QoS stamping node in the SFC; and

a reference time indicating a beginning time for monitoring the one or more QoS fields of the network packet.

16. The method of claim 15, comprising the service index having a value that is decremented by successive QoS stamping nodes in the SFC until the service index reaches a value of “

1”

, a QoS stamping node receiving the NSH-encapsulated network packet with a service index value of “

1”

in the metadata type 2 enables the QoS stamping node to determine it is the last QoS stamping node in the SFC.

17. The method of claim 14, the one or more QoS fields of the network packet include one or more fields having QoS class identifier (QCI) bits, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.1p bits, differentiated services code point (DSCP) bits or tunnel endpoint ID (TED) bits.

18. The method of claim 14, the individual SFs in the SFC comprise at least two of a firewall SF, a virtual router SF, a network address translation (NAT) SF, a session border controller (SBC) SF, a video-optimizer (VO) SF or a content distribution network (CDN) SF.

19. An apparatus comprising:

circuitry at a node providing a service function (SF) included in a service function chain (SFC);

receive logic for execution by the circuitry to receive a network packet encapsulated with a network service header (NSH) that includes metadata type 2;

insert logic for execution by the circuitry to insert quality of service (QoS) stamping information that indicates QoS configuration information for a QoS field of the network packet at ingress or egress of the NSH-encapsulated network packet;

index logic for execution by the circuitry to determine whether the node is the last node in the SFC; and

forward logic for execution by the circuitry to forward the NSH-encapsulated network packet with the inserted QoS stamp information to a next node arranged to provide a different SF included in the SFC if the node is determined to not be the last node in the SFC.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, comprising the index logic to determine whether the node is the last in the SFC based on a value in a service index field included in the metadata type 2 of the NSH, wherein a determination of not being the last node is based on the value being greater than 1.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, comprising the index logic to decrement the value in the service index field before the forward logic forwards the NSH-encapsulated network packet to the next node.

22. The apparatus of claim 19, determining whether the node is the last in the SFC comprises determining based on a value in a service index field included in the metadata type 2 of the NSH, wherein the node is to determine it is the last node based on the value being equal to 1.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, comprising:

strip logic for execution by the circuitry to strip information included in the metadata type 2 from the NSH-encapsulated network packet and cause the information to be sent for storage at a database accessible to an SFC controller, the SFC controller to monitor one or more QoS fields on the network packet for QoS configuration consistency as the network packet was routed through nodes arranged to provide SFs included in the SFC based on the information sent for storage at the database.

24. The apparatus of claim 19, the QoS field of the network packet includes QoS class identifier (QCI) bits, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.1p bits, differentiated services code point (DSCP) bits or tunnel endpoint ID (TED) bits.

25. The apparatus of claim 19, the SF in the SFC provided by the node comprises a firewall SF, a virtual router SF, a network address translation (NAT) SF, a session border controller (SBC) SF, a video-optimizer (VO) SF or a content distribution network (CDN) SF.

26. At least one non-transitory machine readable medium comprising a plurality of instructions that in response to being executed by a system at a node providing a service function (SF) included in a service function chain (SFC) cause the system to:

receive a network packet encapsulated with a network service header (NSH) that includes metadata type 2;

insert quality of service (QoS) stamping information that indicates QoS configuration information for a QoS field of the network packet at ingress or egress of the NSH-encapsulated network packet; and

determine whether the node is the last node in the SFC and forward the NSH-encapsulated network packet with the inserted QoS configuration information to a next node arranged to provide a different SF included in the SFC if the node is determined to not be the last node in the SFC.

27. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 26, the system to determine whether the node is the last in the SFC comprises the system to determine based on a value in a service index field included in the metadata type 2 of the NSH, wherein the system is to determine the node is the last node based on the value being equal to 1.

28. The at least one machine readable medium of claim 27, comprising the instructions to further cause the system to:

strip information included in the metadata type 2 from the NSH-encapsulated network packet;

send the information for storage to a database accessible to an SFC controller, the SFC controller to monitor one or more QoS fields on the network packet for QoS configuration consistency as the network packet was routed through nodes arranged to provide SFs included in the SFC based on the information sent for storage at the database.

29. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 26, the SF in the SFC provided by the node comprises a firewall SF, a virtual router SF, a network address translation (NAT) SF, a session border controller (SBC) SF, a video-optimizer (VO) SF or a content distribution network (CDN) SF.