Provider Edge Router System and Provider Edge Router System Controller for Hybrid Virtualization of Provider Edge Router Functions

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016248703-A1
Application number	US-201514631642-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Feb 25, 2015
Priority date	Feb 25, 2015
Publication date	Aug 25, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A provider edge (“PE”) router system and a PE router system controller for hybrid virtualization of PE router functions is disclosed herein. According to one aspect of the concepts and technologies disclosed herein, a PE router system operating at a PE of a network includes an elastic computing system and a plurality of switches. The elastic computing system can include a plurality of hardware resources and a plurality of virtual machines. Each virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines can utilize at least a portion of the plurality of hardware resources to perform operations. The plurality of virtual machines can include a port virtual machine that provides an interface to a customer edge (“CE”) router operating at a CE of the network. The port virtual machine can provide a first set of operations. The plurality of switches can provide a second set of operations.

First claim

We claim:

1 . A provider edge router system operating at a provider edge of a network, the provider edge router system comprising:
an elastic computing system comprising
a plurality of hardware resources, and
a plurality of virtual machines that each utilize at least a portion of the plurality of hardware resources, the plurality of virtual machines comprising a port virtual machine that provides an interface to a customer edge router operating at a customer edge of the network and that provides a first set of operations; and
a plurality of switches that provides a second set of operations.

2 . The provider edge router system of claim 1 , wherein the first set of operations comprise computationally-intensive operations.

3 . The provider edge router system of claim 2 , wherein the computationally-intensive operations comprise operations that utilize, at least in part, a routing table.

4 . The provider edge router system of claim 2 , wherein the computationally-intensive operations comprise operations that utilize, at least in part, a routing protocol state.

5 . The provider edge router system of claim 1 , wherein the second set of operations comprise switching-intensive operations.

6 . The provider edge router system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of virtual machines further comprise a centralized virtual machine that performs a third set of operations.

7 . The provider edge router system of claim 6 , wherein the third set of operations comprise route processing operations.

8 . The provider edge router system of claim 1 , further comprising a provider edge system controller comprises a processing unit that executes a load balance module to balance a load between the plurality of virtual machines and the plurality of switches.

9 . The provider edge router system of claim 8 , wherein the processing unit of the provider edge system controller executes the load balance module to balance the load between the plurality of virtual machines and the plurality of switches in accordance with a policy.

10 . A provider edge router system controller comprising:
a processing unit; and a memory comprising instructions that, when executed by the processing unit, cause the processing unit to perform operations comprising
extracting customer configuration information from a source router,
instantiating a target router, and
installing the customer configuration information onto the target router.

11 . The provider edge router system controller of claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise detecting a failure of the source router.

12 . The provider edge router system controller of claim 11 , wherein instantiating the target router comprises instantiating a logical provider edge router in a provider edge router system comprising a virtual machine executing in an elastic computing system and a switch.

13 . The provider edge router system controller of claim 12 , wherein the operations further comprise reconfiguring connectivity of a network to incorporate the target router.

14 . The provider edge router system controller of claim 13 , wherein the operations further comprise testing a customer associated with the customer configuration information.

15 . The provider edge router system controller of claim 12 , wherein the operations further comprise balancing a load between the virtual machine and the switch.

16 . The provider edge router system controller of claim 15 , wherein balancing the load between the virtual machine and the switch comprises balancing the load between the virtual machine and the switch in accordance with a policy.

17 . A computer-readable storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processing unit of a provider edge router system controller, cause the provider edge router system controller to perform operations comprising:
extracting customer configuration information from a source router; instantiating a target router; and installing the customer configuration information onto the target router.

18 . The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17 , wherein the operations further comprise detecting a failure of the source router.

19 . The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17 , wherein instantiating the target router comprises instantiating a logical provider edge router in a provider edge router system comprising a virtual machine executing in an elastic computing system and a switch.

20 . The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19 , wherein the operations further comprise balancing a load between the virtual machine and the switch in accordance with a policy.

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp

Inventors

• Gopalakrishnan Vijay
• Chiu Angela L
• Spatscheck Oliver
• Wang Chengwei
• Xu Yang

Classifications

• H04L45/586

  of virtual routers · CPC title

• G06F9/5072

  Grid computing · CPC title

• G06F2009/45595

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

• G06F9/46

  Multiprogramming arrangements · CPC title

• G06F9/455

  Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines · CPC title