Methods and apparatus for remapping public network addresses on a network to an external network via a private communications channel

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10075305-B2
Application number	US-201715489529-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 17, 2017
Priority date	Mar 23, 2011
Publication date	Sep 11, 2018
Grant date	Sep 11, 2018

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for remapping IP addresses of a network to endpoints within a different network. A provider network may allocate IP addresses and resources to a customer. The provider network may allow the customer to remap an IP address to an endpoint on the customer's network. When a packet is received from a client addressed to the IP address, the provider network may determine that the IP address has been remapped to the endpoint. The provider network may translate the source and destination addresses of the packet and encode the packet for transmission over a private communications channel. The encoded packet may be sent to the endpoint via the private communications channel over an intermediate network. Response traffic may be routed to the client through the provider network, or may be directly routed to the client by the customer network.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A provider network, comprising:
one or more computing devices configured to:
implement a user interface allowing a customer of the provider network to assign a public Internet Protocol (IP) address of the provider network assigned to the customer of the provider network as a customer IP address to a particular endpoint address on a customer network external to the provider network; and
maintain mapping information that indicates a mapping of the customer IP address to the particular endpoint address on the customer network external to the provider network; and

one or more network devices configured to:
receive a packet from a client device, wherein the packet indicates the customer IP address as a destination address;
determine, from the mapping information, that the destination address of the packet is mapped to the endpoint on the customer network external to the provider network; and
send the packet to the customer network via a private communications channel over a public network.

2. The provider network as recited in claim 1 , wherein the public network is the Internet.

3. The provider network as recited in claim 1 , wherein the user interface comprises:
a user interface element configured to allow the customer to assign the customer IP address to the particular endpoint address external to the provider network or to another endpoint address; and
an additional user interface element that when selected causes the assignment made via the user interface element to be applied for the customer IP address.

4. The provider network as recited in claim 3 , wherein the user interface further comprises:
one or more other user interface elements configured to allow the customer to assign one or more other customer IP addresses to particular endpoint addresses external to the provider network or to endpoint addresses within the provider network,
wherein the additional user interface element, when selected, causes the assignments made via the other user interface element to be applied for the customer IP address or the one or more other customer IP addresses.

5. The provider network as recited in claim 1 , wherein the provider network includes a separate customer private network for each of one or more customers of the provider network, wherein the one or more customers includes the customer, wherein each customer private network includes one or more components of the provider network assigned to a respective customer, and
wherein, for the customer, the user interface is configured to allow the customer to assign one or more customer IP addresses to an endpoint of one or more components of the provider network assigned to the customer within a separate customer private network of the customer.

6. The provider network as recited in claim 1 , wherein the one or more network device are further configured to:
translate the destination address of the packet to determine a network address of the particular endpoint on the customer network; and
encapsulate the packet according to a private communications channel protocol to generate an encapsulated packet, wherein the encapsulated packet indicates the network address of the endpoint on the customer network as a destination address.

7. The provider network as recited in claim 1 , wherein the one or more network device are further configured to:
translate the destination address of the packet to determine a network address of the particular endpoint on the customer; and
modify the packet to indicate the network address of the particular endpoint on the customer network as a destination address.

8. A method, comprising:
assigning, by one or more server devices on a provider network, subsets of a plurality of public Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to particular customers of the provider network as customer IP addresses;
implementing a user interface allowing a customer of the provider network to assign a customer IP address assigned to the customer to an endpoint address external to the provider network;
receiving, via the user interface, an assignment of a particular customer IP address to a particular endpoint on a customer network external to the provider network;
maintaining, by the one or more server devices, mapping information that indicates mappings of the customer IP addresses to particular endpoint addresses, wherein the mappings comprise the assignment of the particular customer IP address to the particular endpoint on the customer network external to the provider network;
receiving, by the provider network, a packet from a client device, wherein the packet indicates the particular customer IP address as a destination address;
determining, from the mapping information, that the particular customer IP address is mapped to the particular endpoint on the customer network external to the provider network; and
transmitting the packet from the provider network to the customer network via a private communications channel.

9. The method as recited in claim 8 , wherein the private communications channel is over a direct connection between the provider network and the customer network.

10. The method as recited in claim 8 , wherein the private communications channel is a tunneling technology channel over a public network.

11. The method as recited in claim 8 , wherein the transmitted packet further indicates a network address of a network device on the provider network as a source address, and wherein the method further comprises:
receiving, on the provider network, a response packet from the customer network via the private communications channel, wherein the response packet indicates the network address of the endpoint on the customer network as a source address and the network address of the network device on the provider network as a destination address;
translating the source address and the destination address of the response packet to determine the customer IP address and the IP address of the client device; and
sending the response packet to the client device, wherein the response packet sent to the client device indicates the customer IP address as a source IP address and the IP address of the client device as a destination address.

12. The method as recited in claim 8 , wherein the provider network includes a separate customer private network for each of one or more of the customers of the provider network, wherein each customer private network includes one or more components of the provider network assigned to the respective customer.

13. The method as recited in claim 8 , wherein the user interface comprises:
a user interface element configured to allow the customer to assign the customer IP address to the particular endpoint address external to the provider network or to another endpoint address; and
an additional user interface element that when selected causes the assignment made via the user interface element to be applied for the customer IP address.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the user interface further comprises:
one or more other user interface elements configured to allow the customer to assign other customer IP addresses to particular endpoint addresses external to the provider network or to endpoint addresses within the provider network,
wherein the additional user interface element, when selected, causes the assignments made via the other user interface element to be applied for the customer IP address and the other customer IP addresses.

15. A non-transitory computer-accessible storage medium storing program instructions computer executable to implement:
assigning subsets of a plurality o

Assignees

• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Brandwine Eric Jason
• Dickinson Andrew Bruce

Classifications

• H04L12/4641 Primary

  Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] (LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272) · CPC title

• H04L69/161

  Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields · CPC title

• H04L69/166

  IP fragmentation; TCP segmentation · CPC title

• H04L69/169

  Special adaptations of TCP, UDP or IP for interworking of IP based networks with other networks  (protocols for interworking, protocol conversion H04L69/08) · CPC title

• H04L69/168

  specially adapted for link layer protocols, e.g. asynchronous transfer mode [ATM], synchronous optical network [SONET] or point-to-point protocol [PPP] · CPC title