Patent ID: 11956140
Assignee: ARISTA NETWORKS, INC.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A method for servicing network traffic in a wide area network (WAN) comprising a plurality of network devices, the method being executed by a network device among the plurality of network devices and comprising:
receiving a request to transmit the network traffic to a destination network device, wherein the destination network device is one among the plurality of network devices, and wherein the request specifies that the network traffic is to be serviced by a first network service among a plurality of network services prior to being received by the destination network device;
determining, using a service-aware virtual topology (SAVT) routing table stored in the network device, a path through the WAN for reaching the first network service and a service instance identifier (ID) of the first network service, wherein the path is selected from among a plurality of paths through the WAN stored in the SAVT routing table;
after the determining, modifying a header of the network traffic to:
configure a service bit in the header to indicate that service is to be performed on the network traffic; and
add hop stacks information reflecting the path for reaching the network service, wherein the hop stacks information comprises a stack of hop instructions, wherein each hop instruction among the hop instructions specifies another network device among the plurality of network devices that is on the path for reaching the first network service,
wherein the header of the network traffic includes an identification (ID) of the destination network device; and

transmitting, after modifying the header of the network traffic and toward the first network service, the network traffic to a network device among the plurality of network devices specified by a first hop instruction among the hop instructions in the header of the network traffic.