Congestion avoidance with adaptive QoS policy enforcement from SD-WAN controller in SD-WAN networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11071005-B2
Application number	US-201916666904-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 29, 2019
Priority date	Jun 27, 2019
Publication date	Jul 20, 2021
Grant date	Jul 20, 2021

Abstract

According to some embodiments, a method performed by a software defined wide area network (SD-WAN) controller in a SD-WAN network comprising a plurality of aggregation edge routers and a plurality of branch edge routers comprises the following steps. The method comprises: receiving, from each of the plurality of branch edge routers, a transmit location (TLOC) publication comprising a quality of service (QoS) attribute of one or more TLOCs configured on the branch edge router; determining a QoS policy based on the received TLOC publications; transmitting the QoS policy to the plurality of aggregation edge routers; receiving, from a branch edge router of the plurality of branch edge routers, a first congestion indication indicating that bandwidth utilization on a wide area network (WAN) interface of the branch edge router exceeds a first threshold; determining an updated QoS policy based on the received TLOC publications and the first congestion indication to reduce congestion at the branch edge router; and transmitting the updated QoS policy to the plurality of aggregation edge routers.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method performed by a software defined wide area network (SD-WAN) controller in a SD-WAN network comprising a plurality of aggregation edge routers and a plurality of branch edge routers, the method comprising:
receiving, from each of the plurality of branch edge routers, a transmit location (TLOC) publication comprising a quality of service (QoS) attribute of one or more TLOCs configured on the branch edge router;
determining a QoS policy based on the received TLOC publications;
transmitting the QoS policy to the plurality of aggregation edge routers;
receiving, from a branch edge router of the plurality of branch edge routers, a first congestion indication indicating that bandwidth utilization on a wide area network (WAN) interface of the branch edge router exceeds a first threshold;
determining an updated QoS policy based on the received TLOC publications and the first congestion indication to reduce congestion at the branch edge router; and
transmitting the updated QoS policy to the plurality of aggregation edge routers.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, from the branch edge router of the plurality of branch edge routers, a second congestion indication indicating that bandwidth utilization on the branch edge router WAN interface is below a second threshold;
determining an updated QoS policy based on the received TLOC publications and the second congestion indication; and
transmitting the updated QoS policy to the plurality of aggregation edge routers.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the QoS attribute comprises a downstream bandwidth.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the QoS attribute comprises a bandwidth shaper ratio.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the bandwidth shaper ratio is based on a number of aggregation edge routers in communication with the branch edge router.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the TLOC publications are published using overlay management protocol (OMP).

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein bandwidth utilization includes current and historical bandwidth utilization.

8. A method performed by an aggregation edge router in a software defined wide area network (SD-WAN) comprising a SD-WAN controller and a plurality of branch edge routers, the method comprising:
receiving a quality of service (QoS) policy from the SD-WAN controller, wherein the QoS policy is based on transmit location (TLOC) publications from the plurality of branch edge routers, and wherein the QoS policy comprises a QoS attribute for each TLOC published by the plurality of branch edge routers;
determining, based on the received QoS policy, a parent shape rate for each of the TLOCs; and
communicating with a branch edge router according to the QoS policy and determined parent shape rate.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
receiving, from the SD-WAN controller, an updated QoS policy, wherein the updated QoS policy is based on the TLOC publications from the plurality of branch edge routers and a congestion indication from a branch edge router of the plurality of branch edge routers;
determining, based on the updated QoS policy, an updated parent shape rate for each of the TLOCs; and
communicating with a branch edge router according to the updated QoS policy and updated parent shape rate.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the QoS attribute comprises a downstream bandwidth.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein the QoS attribute comprises a bandwidth shaper ratio.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the bandwidth shaper ratio is based on a number of aggregation edge routers in communication with the branch edge router.

13. The method of claim 8 , wherein the QoS policy is received using overlay management protocol (OMP).

14. A method performed by a branch edge router in a software defined wide area network (SD-WAN) comprising a SD-WAN controller and a plurality of aggregation edge routers, the method comprising:
transmitting, to the SD-WAN controller, a transmit location (TLOC) publication comprising a quality of service (QoS) attribute of one or more TLOCs configured on the branch edge router;
receiving communications from one or more of the plurality of aggregation edge routers according to a first QoS policy implemented at the plurality of aggregation edge routers;
determining that bandwidth utilization on a wide area network (WAN) interface of the branch edge router exceeds a first threshold;
transmitting a first congestion indication to the SD-WAN controller; and
receiving communications from one or more of the plurality of aggregation edge routers according to a second QoS policy implemented at the plurality of aggregation edge routers, the second QoS policy based at least in part on the first congestion indication.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
determining that bandwidth utilization on the WAN interface of the branch edge router is below a second threshold;
transmitting a second congestion indication to the SD-WAN controller; and
receiving communications from one or more of the plurality of aggregation edge routers according to a third QoS policy implemented at the plurality of aggregation edge routers, the third QoS policy based at least in part on the second congestion indication.

16. The method of claim 14 , wherein the QoS attribute comprises a downstream bandwidth.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the QoS attribute comprises a bandwidth shaper ratio.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the bandwidth shaper ratio is based on a number of aggregation edge routers in communication with the branch edge router.

19. The method of claim 14 , wherein the TLOC publications are transmitted to the SD-WAN controller using overlay management protocol (OMP).

20. The method of claim 14 , wherein bandwidth utilization includes current and historical bandwidth utilization.

Assignees

• Cisco Tech Inc

Inventors

• Shen Changhong
• Zhang Yu
• Wang Xiaorong
• Duan Pu

Classifications

• H04L41/0896 Primary

  Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities (flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76) · CPC title

• H04L47/12

  Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion · CPC title

• H04W28/0268 Primary

  using specific QoS parameters for wireless networks, e.g. QoS class identifier [QCI] or guaranteed bit rate [GBR] (negotiating SLA or negotiating QoS H04W28/24) · CPC title

• H04L41/0894

  Policy-based network configuration management · CPC title

• H04L47/24

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