Abstract:
A dense virtual router packet switching system includes a memory divided into context areas for a set of virtual private routed networks (VPRNs). Each context area includes a routing table and routing protocol state information for a corresponding VPRN. Each of a set of different routing tasks operates with a separate routing table and separate routing protocol state information to realize a corresponding virtual router. Context selection logic selectively couples the routing tasks to the different context areas of the memory to realize a set of virtual routers for all the VPRNs. The system supports a large number of routes by exploiting the segmentation of the VPRNs. Rather than having a single large routing table and associated routing process, which can load hardware resources in proportion to the square of the number of routes in the routing table, routes are distributed among a number of VPRNs having generally smaller tables and correspondingly less processing demand.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]    This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/264,093 filed Jan. 25, 2001. 
     
    
     
       STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT  
         [0002]    Not Applicable  
         BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0003]    The present invention is related to the field of routed networks, and more particularly to routed networks employing virtual private routed network (VPRN) techniques.  
           [0004]    One of the challenges facing designers of data communications networks is to provide improved performance in the face of tremendous growth in network size and complexity. As the number of nodes using distinct network addresses in a network grows, the sizes of routing tables used for routing in the network increase, and more processing power is required to calculate routes and carry out the routing of network traffic. In fact, the processing load associated with routing increases generally as the square of the number of distinct routes. In large networks having a generally flat shared address space, such as the Internet, it may be infeasible for routers to support sufficiently large routing tables, due to constraints in the available processing power.  
           [0005]    It has been known to emulate a private, wide-area routed network within another, generally more public, wide-area network. Such an emulated network is referred to as a virtual private routed network (VPRN). Because a VPRN “piggybacks” on a separate and generally shared network, it can be more cost effective than a distinct private wide area network. At the same time, there is significant functional separation between the VPRN and the underlying network, so that VPRN largely behaves like a standalone network, with attendant benefits in security, network management, and other aspects of network operation.  
           [0006]    In a common VPRN configuration, the VPRN employs Internet Protocol (IP) technology of the same type used in the Internet, complete with a private instance of a distributed IP routing protocol such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and a private set of network addresses such as IPv4 addresses. A mesh of “tunnels”, or dedicated virtual channels, are established among a set of router nodes in the Internet. The router nodes encapsulate VPRN traffic in a format required by the tunnels, transmit encapsulated traffic to other router nodes using the Internet address space and routing protocols, decapsulate received traffic to recover the original VPRN traffic, and then use the VPRN routing protocols and address space to forward the traffic to other nodes in the VPRN outside the Internet.  
         BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0007]    In accordance with the present invention, a dense virtual router packet switching system is disclosed that achieves improved performance even in very large networks with a large number of routes.  
           [0008]    The disclosed system includes a memory divided into a number of context areas for a set of virtual private routed networks (VPRNs), where each VPRN employs a respective routing protocol and network address space. Multiple instances of the same routing protocol may be in use by different VPRNs, and different VPRNs may also use overlapping network addresses. Each context area of the memory includes a routing table and routing protocol state information for a corresponding VPRN.  
           [0009]    The system further includes a set of routing tasks, including at least one routing task for each different type of routing protocol employed in the set of VPRNs. Each routing task operates with a separate routing table and separate routing protocol state information to realize a “virtual router” to carry out routing operations. Context selection logic selectively couples the routing tasks to the different context areas of the memory, thereby realizing a set of virtual routers for all the VPRNs supported by the dense virtual routing system.  
           [0010]    For a given total number of routes, the use of VPRNs can improve performance over a non-segmented network by reducing the processing load for each VPRN by an amount that more than compensates for replicating the processing for each VPRN. For example, if one million routes are supported in a non-segmented network, the processing load is on the order of the square of 1 million, or 10 12  , processing operations per unit time. If the same one million routes are segmented into 1000 VPRNs of 1000 routes apiece, then the processing load is on the order of 1000×(1000) 2  , or 10 9  , processing operations per unit time.  
           [0011]    Other aspects, features, and advantages of the present invention are disclosed in the detailed description that follows. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING  
       [0012]    The invention will be more fully understood by reference to the following Detailed Description in conjunction with the Drawing, of which:  
         [0013]    [0013]FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a network including routers employing dense virtual router packet switching in accordance with the present invention;  
         [0014]    [0014]FIG. 2 is a high-level functional block diagram of a router in the network of FIG. 1;  
         [0015]    [0015]FIG. 3 is a more detailed functional block diagram of the router of FIG. 2;  
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 4 is a high-level block diagram depicting the hardware/software architecture of the router of FIGS. 2 and 3; and  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a virtual router subsystem in the router of FIGS.  2 - 4 . 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0018]    The disclosure of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/264,093 filed Jan. 25, 2001, is hereby incorporated by reference herein.  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 1 shows a network in which a wide-area routed network  10  is utilized to carry traffic for a number of virtual private routed networks (VPRNs). Each VPRN includes corresponding VPRN subnetworks  12 . In FIG. 1, VPRNs numbered  1  through  3  are shown, with each including corresponding subnetworks  12 - 1 ,  12 - 2  and  12 - 3 . The wide-area routed network  10  includes a number of routers  14 . Each router  14  has connections to access links  16  that connect the router  14  to local VPRN subnetworks  12 , and has connections to backbone links  18  that connect the router  14  to other routers  14  in the wide-area routed network  10 .  
         [0020]    An example of the wide-area routed network  10  is a global network such as the Internet. In general, the wide-area routed network  10  has a given network address space and a defined set of communications protocols, including routing protocols. For example, the wide-area routed network  10  may employ the Internet Protocol (IP) with IP version  4  (IPv4) addressing, and employ routing protocols such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Routing Information Protocol (RIP), etc.  
         [0021]    Each VPRN, which is made up of a corresponding set of VPRN subnetworks  12 , is a routed network having its own network address space and network communications protocols, including a routing protocol. Nodes within a VPRN are generally not assigned addresses in the address space of the wide-area routed network  10 , nor do the routers  14  carry traffic on their specific behalf. Rather, as described in more detail below, the routers  14  utilize the address space and routing protocols of the wide-area routed network  10  on behalf of the VPRN subnetworks  12  as entities. The VPRN subnetworks  12 , in turn, utilize their respective private address spaces and routing protocols for internal routing of data traffic among specific computers or other types of network sources and destinations. Fundamentally, the wide-area routed network  10  and routers  14  serve to provide dedicated virtual connections among the VPRN subnetworks  12  to form the various larger-scale VPRNs.  
         [0022]    [0022]FIG. 2 shows an exemplary organization of a router  14 .  
         [0023]    Several “virtual access routers” (VARs)  20  are associated with respective customers and connected to the respective customers&#39;access links  16 . These are described in more detail below. A provider “virtual backbone router” (VBR)  22  is connected to the backbone links  18  of the wide area routed network  10  of FIG. 1. The VBR  22  uses IP addresses from the address space of the wide area routed network  10 , which is separate from the address spaces of the VPRNs. The VBR  22  provides a tunneling service to VARs  20  that is used in constructing the VPRNs. A signaling protocol such as the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) is used to set up the tunnels. The VBR  22  may also provide direct access to the wide area routed network  10  for customers desiring such service, such as Customer D in FIG. 2. The VBR  22  participates in the full routing for the wide-area routed network  10 . In the case of the Internet, the VBR  22  generally maintains a full BGP routing table.  
         [0024]    Each VAR  20  has its own routing table and runs its own instances of the routing protocols used in the corresponding VPRN.  
         [0025]    The network addresses (e.g., IP addresses) of a VAR  20  are taken from the address space of the VPRN to which the VAR belongs. Different VARs  20  can use overlapping sets of addresses, i.e., the same address may appear in different sets, even though the different instances of the address belong to different nodes in different VPRNs. There is generally no direct connection, in the sense of an IP routing adjacency, between different VARs  20  within a router  14  or between a VAR  20  and the VBR  22 .  
         [0026]    As mentioned, RSVP signaling is used to create tunnels within the wide-area routed network  10  to connect VARs  20  residing in different routers  14 . This signaling is accomplished through the use of virtual tunnel adapters (VTAs)  24 . These devices resemble IP hosts residing in the wide-area routed network  10 , and have host IP addresses in the address space of the wide-area routed network  10 . Each VTA  24  has a signaling interface via which the VTA  24  is instructed to establish a tunnel connection between a local VAR  20  and a remote VAR  20  residing on another router  14  (not shown in FIG. 2).  
         [0027]    [0027]FIG. 3 shows a more detailed view of a router  14 . The VARs  20  are associated with Virtual Interfaces (VIs)  30 , which in turn are associated with MPLS label switched paths (LSPs) on the backbone links  18  of the wide area routed network  10 . LSPs are established to form the tunnels through the wide area routed network  10  that link the various VPRN subnetworks  12 . As shown, a two-level hierarchy of LSPs is used. An “inner” LSP  32  carries traffic specifically associated with a given VI  30 . An “outer” LSP  34  carries a group of inner LSPs  32 . A different outer LSP  34  is defined between each pair of routers  14  in the wide-area routed network  10 .  
         [0028]    The router  14  also includes various additional functional entities such as a VPN Agent  36 , Quality of Service (QoS) Manager  38 , LSP Manager  40 , MPLS Signaling function  42 , and Line Control Processor (LCP) Interface  44 . The VPN Agent  36  coordinates the configuration of the VPRNs. The VPN Agent  36  instatiates VARs  20  and VIs  30 , interacts with the LSP Manager  40  to coordinate the use of labels, and passes QoS information to the LSP manager  40  for dynamically configured labels. The QoS Manager  38  handles the QoS aspect of the setting up of LSPs, which includes interpreting the QoS parameters of RSVP.  
         [0029]    The LSP Manager  40  coordinates all aspects of LSPs, including the creation and deletion of LSPs and the maintenance of label information. It interfaces with the VPN agent  36  and the MPLS signaling function  42  in the creation, monitoring, and deletion of LSPs.  
         [0030]    The MPLS signaling function  42  implements RSVP signaling for MPLS. At an ingress node for an LSP, the MPLS signaling function  42  signals downstream to obtain a label. At an egress node, the MPLS signaling function  42  passes labels upstream. At a transit node, the MPLS signaling function  42  interfaces with upstream and downstream routers to distribute labels.  
         [0031]    The MPLS signaling function  42  also interfaces with routing code to obtain next hop information, and passes label information to the LSP Manager  40 .  
         [0032]    The LCP interface  44  passes forwarding information from the software-implemented functions of FIG. 3, such as the VARs  20  and VIs  30 , to hardware forwarding engines residing on line cards (not shown) within the router  14 . The forwarding information falls into four categories: next hop routing information, MPLS label information, packet classification information, and QoS information.  
         [0033]    [0033]FIG. 4 shows a high-level software and hardware organization for the routers  14 . A number of physical interfaces (PIs)  50  connect to the access links  16  and backbone links  18  of FIGS.  1 - 3 . Examples of such interfaces include Ethernet interfaces, SONET interfaces, etc. A layer- 2  protocol such as ATM may also be used. Each PI  50  is also connected to a virtual interface (VI) subsystem  52 , which includes all of the VIs in the router  14 , such as the VIs  30  of FIG. 3. The VI subsystem  52  has a number of connections to a virtual router (VR) subsystem  54 , which includes all the virtual routers such as the VARs  20  and VBR  22  of FIG. 3. The PIs  50 , VI subsystem  52 , and VR subsystem  54  are coupled to a collection of other functional elements labeled in FIG. 4 as a management subsystem  56 . The management subsystem  56  includes the VPN agent  36 , QoS Manager  38 , LSP Manager  40 , MPLS Signaling function  42  and LCP interface  44  of FIG. 3.  
         [0034]    The, virtual routers (VRs) within the VR subsystem  54  generally consist of processes and associated data that behave as a number of separate, distinct routers. Each VR is associated with a different VPRN. A given router  14  may include a few or many such VRs in accordance with the number of VPRNs having traffic flowing through the router  14 . Subject to hardware constraints of a given platform, such as processing power and memory capacity, a router  14  may be configured with as many as hundreds or potentially thousands of such VRs.  
         [0035]    The VI subsystem  52  provides a special function within the router  14 . A conventional router generally includes a routing subsystem tied directly to physical interfaces, without an intermediate subsystem such as the VI subsystem  52  shown in FIG. 4. Accordingly, changes to the underlying physical network result in the need to change routing tables and other data structures in the routing subsystem. Examples of such changes to the physical network include manual reconfigurations and automatic protection switching. When the routing subsystem has a very large routing data structure, as is the case for the VR subsystem  54 , it is difficult and inefficient to maintain physical-layer information within it. The arrangement of FIG. 4 addresses these problems by “virtualizing” the interfaces from the perspective of the virtual routers in the VR subsystem  54 . Each virtual router employs static, generic interface identifiers, and the VI subsystem  52  handles the translation between these interface identifiers and details of underlying physical interfaces, which in general are subject to dynamic change.  
         [0036]    [0036]FIG. 5 shows the VR subsystem  54 . A collection of routing processes or tasks such as OSPF tasks  60 -O, BGP tasks  60 -B, and RIP tasks  60 -R are coupled to a memory  62  via context selection logic  64 . The memory  62  is divided into a number of context areas, shown as CTXT  1 , CTXT  2 , . . . CTXT M, for M distinct VRs. Each context area contains a routing table and other operating state information for a different VR. The tasks  60  are independent processes that are time-shared among the various VRs. The time-sharing is accomplished in part via the context selection logic  64 . As events occur that require action for a given VR (most such events being associated with the sending and receiving of routing protocol messages or packets), the context selection logic  64  couples the appropriate task  60  to the context area CTXT for that VR. The task  60  then executes using the data from that context area CTXT. This processing continues to completion before a subsequent event is permitted to activate another VR, at which time the same or a different task  60  becomes coupled to a context area CTXT for the other VR.  
         [0037]    As an example, let it be assumed that a VR identified as VR # 134  is part of a VPRN in which the OSPF routing protocol is used. Context area CTXT  134  of the memory  62  contains the routing table and other operating state for this VR. Upon receipt of a routing protocol packet on a VI associated with VR # 134 , an OSPF task  60 -O is activated, and the context selection logic  64  connects the OSPF task  60 -O to context area CTXT  134 . The OSPF task  60 -O performs operations in accordance with the received packet, which may include updating the routing table and initiating the transmission of one or more routing protocol packets to other routers in the VPRN. Once the processing associated with the received routing protocol packet is complete, the context selection logic  64  is free to break the connection between the OSPF task  60  and context area CTXT  134  in favor of a new connection, which will generally involve a different context area CTXT of the memory  62  and may involve a different task  60  as well.  
         [0038]    In the illustrated embodiment, the context selection logic  64  employs an inner-LSP label appearing in encapsulated protocol packets to identify which context area  62  to select for processing the packet. A mapping table (not shown) within the context selection logic  64  maps the label to a base address of the associated context area  62 . The inner-LSP label appearing in the encapsulated protocol packets is likewise mapped to the generic interface identifiers used in the routing table that resides in the selected context area  62 .  
         [0039]    The number of tasks  60  can vary in accordance with the routing protocols being used by the active VPRNs and the processing resources available in the router  14 . There must be at least one active task  60  for each different routing protocol used by any of the VPRNs supported by the router  14 . Thus, if all of the active VPRNs are using either OSPF or BGP routing, for example, then the minimum set of tasks  60  is one OSPF task  60 -O and one BGP task  60 -B. In general, one task  60  can support a number of VPRNs of the same type (i.e., using the same routing protocol), depending on the processing resources allocated to the task  60  and the demand from the VPRNs. If there are a large number of active VPRNs using a given protocol, it may be desirable that there be multiple tasks  60  of the same type. These tasks may time-share the same physical processor(s), or may be distributed in a parallel fashion among different processors if such hardware processing resources are available in the router  14 .  
         [0040]    Similarly, the memory  62  may be a single memory containing all the context areas CTXT for all VRs of the router  14 , or it may be a system having multiple independent memories, each containing some subset of the context areas CTXT. The context selection logic  64  is generally designed to exploit parallelism in order to maximize performance. If the hardware platform is capable of running multiple tasks  60  simultaneously and accessing multiple context areas CTXT of the memory  62  simultaneously, then preferably the context selection logic  64  looks for opportunities to activate two or more VRs simultaneously.  
         [0041]    The connections  66  shown in FIG. 5 represent logical connections between each VR and the VI subsystem  52  of FIG. 4. In general, there are multiple such logical connections between each VR and the VI subsystem  52 , with each logical connection corresponding to a different interface identifier. Some VRs may have as few as two associated VIs, whereas other VRs may have many.  
         [0042]    It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that modifications to and variations of the above-described techniques are possible without departing from the inventive concepts disclosed herein. Accordingly, the invention should be viewed as limited solely by the scope and spirit of the appended claims.