Techniques for using mappings to manage network traffic

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9929951-B1
Application number	US-201113114769-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	May 24, 2011
Priority date	May 24, 2011
Publication date	Mar 27, 2018
Grant date	Mar 27, 2018

Abstract

Systems and methods manage network traffic of a first protocol by use of a second protocol. Network traffic directed toward a network destination address of a first protocol is received. A mapping of addresses is utilized to determine a corresponding other network address of the second protocol. The network traffic is reconfigured to be forwarded to the intended network destination using the second protocol and the determined corresponding other network address.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for managing network traffic, comprising:
receiving, at a first device of a virtual computing resource service provider, a plurality of Internet protocol version six packets that each have a destination Internet protocol version six address; and
for each received Internet protocol version six packet of at least a subset of the received plurality of Internet protocol version six packets:
extracting an Internet protocol version four address from the destination Internet protocol version six address of the received Internet protocol version six packet;
determining, based at least in part on a mapping of public Internet protocol version four addresses to private Internet protocol version four addresses, a private Internet protocol version four address for the received Internet protocol version six packet;
encapsulating the received Internet protocol version six packet of the at least the subset within an Internet protocol version four packet that has the determined private Internet protocol version four address as a destination address; and
forwarding the encapsulated received Internet protocol version six packet to a network destination corresponding to the determined private Internet protocol version four address by at least:
providing the encapsulated received Internet protocol version six packet to a second device that executes a hypervisor-implemented virtual computer system corresponding to the network destination, the second device configured to:
deencapsulate the encapsulated received Internet protocol version six packet at the second device to obtain a deencapsulated Internet protocol version six packet, and
provide the deencapsulated Internet protocol version six packet from a hypervisor of the second device to a program implemented by the virtual computer system based at least in part on the deencapsulated Internet protocol version six packet.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the encapsulating of the received Internet protocol version six packet includes adding at least one Internet protocol version four header to the received Internet protocol version six packet.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the extracted Internet protocol version four address is embedded within the Internet protocol version six address.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, at the first device, an Internet protocol version four response to the received Internet protocol version six packet;
modifying the response to be an Internet protocol version six response; and
forwarding the modified Internet protocol version six response to a response destination.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the network destination is a load balancer.

6. A computer-implemented method for managing network traffic, comprising:
receiving, at a first device of a virtual computing resource service provider, an information unit organized according to a first protocol, the information unit having a first destination identifier and the first protocol having a corresponding first address space;
determining a different destination identifier based at least in part on the first destination identifier;
identifying, based at least in part on the determined different destination identifier, a mapping of members of a first set of destination identifiers to members of a second set of destination identifiers, a second destination identifier;
changing the received information unit to be organized according to a second protocol and to include the identified second destination identifier, the second protocol having a corresponding second address space that is smaller than the first address space; and
forwarding the changed received information unit to a network destination corresponding to the second destination identifier by at least:
providing the changed received information unit to a second device executing a hypervisor, the second device implementing a virtual computer system corresponding to the network destination, and the second device configured to change the changed received information unit to be organized according to the first protocol corresponding to the network destination; and
providing, from the hypervisor of the second device, the information unit organized according to the first protocol to a program implemented by the virtual computer system based at least in part on the information unit organized according to the first protocol.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the information unit is an Internet protocol version six packet.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein the first destination identifier is an Internet protocol version six address comprising a set of bits and wherein the determined different destination identifier consists of a subset that is less than all of the set of bits.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the second protocol is Internet protocol version four.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the forwarding of the changed received information unit to the network destination includes routing the changed received information unit over a network that includes at least one device unable to route network traffic according to the first protocol.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , further comprising:
receiving, at the first device, a second information unit that is organized according to the second protocol;
changing the received second information unit to a third information unit that is organized according to the first protocol; and
forwarding the changed received second information unit.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11 , wherein the second information unit is a response to the received information unit.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11 , further comprising:
determining, based at least in part on the first destination identifier, a corresponding destination identifier of the second protocol that is a member of the first set of destination identifiers; and
wherein the identifying of the second destination identifier is based at least in part on the determined corresponding destination identifier and the mapping.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , further comprising:
receiving, at the first device, a request to associate the network destination with a character string in a domain name service; and
in response to the request, associating both the first destination identifier and the corresponding destination identifier with the character string in the domain name service to enable the domain name service to respond to requests to resolve the character string by providing the first destination identifier when the requests are of a first request type and providing the corresponding destination identifier when the requests are of a second request type.

15. A system for managing network traffic, comprising:
one or more processors; and
memory including instructions executable by the one or more processors to manage network traffic by causing the system to at least:
receive, at a first device of a virtual computing resource service provider, information units organized according to a first protocol, the information units each having a first destination identifier and the first protocol having a corresponding first address space; and
for each information unit of at least a subset of the received information units:
identify, based at least in part on a determined destination identifier and a mapping of members of a first set

Assignees

• Dickinson Andrew B
• Sinn Frederick David
• Roberts Bradley D
• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Dickinson Andrew B
• Sinn Frederick David
• Roberts Bradley D

Classifications

• H04L29/0827

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L61/251

  between different IP versions · CPC title

• H04L45/741 Primary

  Routing in networks with a plurality of addressing schemes, e.g. with both IPv4 and IPv6 · CPC title

• H04L49/10

  characterised by the switching fabric construction · CPC title

• H04L2101/659

  Internet protocol version 6 [IPv6] addresses · CPC title