Network fabric overlay

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10547544-B2
Application number	US-201715855703-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 27, 2017
Priority date	Nov 5, 2013
Publication date	Jan 28, 2020
Grant date	Jan 28, 2020

Abstract

Disclosed herein are methods of forwarding packets on a network, such as a leaf-spine network having leaf devices and spine devices. The methods may include receiving a packet at an ingress leaf device, and determining based, at least in part, on a header of the packet whether the packet is to be transmitted to a spine device. The methods may further include ascertaining based, at least in part, on a header of the packet whether to perform encapsulation on the packet, encapsulating the packet according to a result of the ascertaining, and then transmitting the packet to a spine device according to a result of the determining. Also disclosed herein are network apparatuses which include a processor and a memory, at least one of the processor or the memory being configured to perform some or all of the foregoing described methods.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method comprising:
receiving a packet at an ingress leaf device of a leaf-spine network, the packet including a header with a destination locator address;
determining by the ingress leaf device of the leaf-spine network based, at least in part, on the header of the packet whether the packet is to be transmitted to a device of the leaf-spine network;
ascertaining whether to perform encapsulation on the packet based at least in part on the header of the packet and whether the packet is to be transmitted into a fabric of the leaf-spine network or outside the fabric of the leaf-spine network;
encapsulating by the ingress leaf device of the leaf-spine network the packet according to a result of the ascertaining such that an encapsulated packet is generated, the encapsulated packet including another destination locator address of a proxy device of the leaf-spine network; and
after encapsulating the packet according to the result of the ascertaining, transmitting the encapsulated packet to the proxy device of the leaf-spine network.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the packet is received from another device, the method further comprising:
determining whether the another device is a trusted device or a partially-trusted device,
wherein,
the ascertaining is based, at least in part, upon whether the another device is the trusted device or the partially-trusted device.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining that the packet has previously been encapsulated; and
determining a type of encapsulation of the packet,
wherein,
the ascertaining is based, at least in part, upon the type of encapsulation of the packet.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the ascertaining is performed based, at least in part, upon whether the packet is to be transmitted to the device.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
selecting one of two or more spine devices,
wherein,
the transmitting comprises sending the packet to a selected one of the two or more spine devices.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the selecting of the one of the two or more spine devices is performed based, at least in part, on the header of the packet.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the selecting of the one of the two or more spine devices is further performed based, at least in part, upon a flow associated with the packet.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
selecting one of two or more proxies,
wherein,
the transmitting comprises sending the packet to a selected one of the two or more proxies.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the selecting of the one of the two or more proxies is performed based, at least in part, on the header of the packet.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the selecting of the one of the two or more proxies is further performed based, at least in part, upon a flow associated with the packet.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein the encapsulated packet includes a header with a proxy address of a proxy implemented in one or more servers.

12. The method of claim 8 , wherein the encapsulated packet includes a header with a proxy address of a proxy implemented in one or more spine devices.

13. The method of claim 8 , wherein the encapsulated packet includes a header with a proxy address of a layer 2 proxy.

14. The method of claim 8 , wherein the encapsulated packet includes a header with a proxy address of a layer 3 proxy.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining is performed using an adjacency table maintained by the ingress leaf device.

16. A method comprising:
receiving a packet at an ingress leaf device of a leaf-spine network, the packet including a header with a destination locator address;
determining by the ingress leaf device of the leaf-spine network based, at least in part, on the header of the packet that the packet is to be transmitted to a spine device of the leaf-spine network;
ascertaining whether to perform encapsulation on the packet based at least in part on the header of the packet and whether the packet is to be transmitted into a fabric of the leaf-spine network or outside the fabric of the leaf-spine network;
encapsulating by the ingress leaf device of the leaf-spine network the packet according to a result of the ascertaining such that an encapsulated packet is generated, the encapsulated packet including another destination locator address of a proxy device of the leaf-spine network; and
after encapsulating the packet according to the result of the ascertaining, transmitting the encapsulated packet to the proxy device of the leaf-spine network according to a result of the determining.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the ascertaining whether to perform encapsulation on the packet is based at least in part on the header of the packet.

18. An apparatus comprising:
a processor; and
a memory, at least one of the processor or the memory being configured to:
receive a packet at a leaf device of a leaf-spine network, the packet including a header with a destination locator address;
determine by the leaf device of the leaf-spine network based, at least in part, on the header of the packet whether the packet is to be transmitted to a spine device;
ascertain whether to perform encapsulation on the packet based at least in part on the header of the packet and whether the packet is to be transmitted into a fabric of the leaf-spine network or outside the fabric of the leaf-spine network;
encapsulate by the leaf device of the leaf-spine network the packet according to a result of ascertaining whether to perform encapsulation on the packet such that an encapsulated packet is generated, the encapsulated packet including another destination locator address of a proxy device of the leaf-spine network; and
after encapsulating the packet according to the result of the ascertaining, transmit the encapsulated packet to the proxy device of the leaf-spine network.

19. The apparatus of claim 18 , wherein the memory and/or the processor are further configured to ascertain by the leaf device of the leaf-spine network based, at least in part, on the header of the packet whether to perform encapsulation on the packet.

20. The apparatus of claim 18 , wherein the memory and/or the processor are configured to determine whether the packet is to be transmitted to the spine device using an adjacency table.

Assignees

• Cisco Tech Inc

Inventors

• Edsall Thomas James
• Yadav Navindra
• Matus Francisco M
• Chu Kit Chiu
• Smith Michael R
• Merchant Sameer
• Doddapaneni Krishna
• Sinha Satyam

Classifications

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• H04L49/10

  characterised by the switching fabric construction · CPC title

• G06F2009/45595

  Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances · CPC title

• H04L45/66

  Layer 2 routing, e.g. in Ethernet based MAN's · CPC title

• H04L12/4633 Primary

  Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling · CPC title