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

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10243827-B2
Application number	US-201615275833-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 26, 2016
Priority date	Sep 26, 2016
Publication date	Mar 26, 2019
Grant date	Mar 26, 2019

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.

First claim

What is claimed is:

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 , t

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Browne Rory
• Chilikin Andrey

Classifications

• H04L47/24

  Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS · CPC title

• H04L69/22

  Parsing or analysis of headers · CPC title

• H04L41/5009

  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 title

• H04L43/10 Primary

  Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route · CPC title