Hardware and software methodologies for creating and managing portable service function chains

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9979645-B2
Application number	US-201514596546-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 14, 2015
Priority date	Jan 14, 2015
Publication date	May 22, 2018
Grant date	May 22, 2018

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure describe a self-contained service function network layer between a chain (e.g., a logical chain or service function chain) and a substrate network. Embodiments of the present disclosure further provide techniques for constructing logical chains for service function networks using chain tables, organizing chain tables using application program interfaces (APIs), deploying service function networks to substrate networks, routing packets through a service function network and a substrate network, and inserting, deleting, re-routing, moving and substituting service functions in logical chains.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus for managing service function chains, the apparatus comprising:
a controller controlling a plurality of service functions and a substrate network, wherein each service function of said plurality of service functions is associated with an identifier and a network address, and wherein the substrate network comprises a plurality of network switches coupled to the controller; and
a chain table stored at a first service function of a service function chain, wherein the chain table stores an entry comprising a first identifier and a corresponding index of a next service function in the service function chain, wherein the corresponding index of the next service function is defined as the location of the next service function in the service function chain, and wherein
the controller
generates a mapping comprising network addresses and associated identifiers;
creates or modifies the entry of the chain table; and
deploys the chain table to the first service function, and

the first service function receives a packet; processes the packet; and transfers the packet to the next service function, wherein
an indexed service function chain is derived from an original service function chain in which a gap value, based on the length of the original service function chain and a key size, is calculated to define the location of each of the service functions.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first service function transfers the packet to the next service function by looking up the network address of the next service function using the mapping.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein
the controller generates a routing table for the plurality of network switches, and
the routing table comprises an outgoing address and an outgoing port number associated with the outgoing address.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein the first service function transfers the packet to the next service function by determining an address of the next service function using the mapping and determining a port number associated with the address using the routing table.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the indexed service function chain includes an identifier for each of the service functions in the indexed service function chain and the corresponding index defining the location for each of the service functions.

6. A method for managing service function chains, comprising:
controlling, via a controller, a plurality of service functions and a substrate network, wherein each service function of said plurality of service functions is associated with an identifier and a network address, and wherein the substrate network comprises a plurality of network switches coupled to the controller;
storing a chain table at a first service function of a service function chain, wherein the chain table stores an entry comprising the first identifier and an index of a next service function in the service function chain; and
generating, via the controller, a mapping comprising network addresses and associated identifiers to create or modify the entry of the chain table and deploy the chain table to the first service function, wherein
the first service function receives a packet, processes the packet to change a destination address of the packet to the address of the next service function in the chain according to the mapping, and transfers the packet to the next service function, wherein
an indexed service function chain is derived from an original service function chain in which a gap value, based on the length of the original service function chain and a key size, is calculated to define the location of each of the service functions.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising transferring the packet to the next service function by looking up the network address of the next service function using the mapping.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the method further comprises generating a routing table for the plurality of network switches, wherein
the routing table comprises an outgoing address and an outgoing port number associated with the outgoing address.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising transferring the packet to the next service function by determining an address of the next service function using the mapping and determining a port number associated with the address using the routing table.

10. The method of claim 6 , wherein the first service function extracts the first identifier and the index of the next service function from the packet, and accesses the entry in the chain table of the service function corresponding to the first identifier and the index.

Assignees

• Futurewei Technologies Inc

Inventors

• Ll Li
• Cai Tao

Classifications

• H04L45/54

  Organization of routing tables · CPC title

• H04L45/021

  Ensuring consistency of routing table updates, e.g. by using epoch numbers · CPC title

• H04L45/745 Primary

  Address table lookup; Address filtering · CPC title