Various techniques for dynamic path selection and data flow forwarding are disclosed. For example, various systems, processes, and computer program products for dynamic path selection and data flow forwarding are disclosed for providing dynamic path selection and data flow forwarding that can facilitate preserving/enforcing symmetry in data flows as disclosed with respect to various embodiments.

At a router, at least one memory and computer program code stored therein are configured to, with at least one processor, cause the router to: determine source router identification information for a tunnel traversing the router based on a routable source IP address for the tunnel; determine destination router identification information for the tunnel based on a routable destination IP address for the tunnel; program a bit string entry for the tunnel in a Bit Index Forwarding Table (BIFT) for tunnels from a source router to a plurality of destination routers, the BIFT being indexed based on the source router identification information and at least a portion of the destination router identification information; and route packet data received at the router according to the BIFT.

This application discloses a packet processing method and an LSR. The method includes: receiving, by an Ingress LSR of a first MPLS tunnel, a first notification packet that is based on an IGP, where the first notification packet includes an ELC flag, which is used to indicate that the first Egress LSR has ELC; after learning from the first notification packet that the first Egress LSR has ELC, inserting a label into a first packet, to generate a second packet, where the label forms an MPLS label stack, which includes, from bottom to top, a first EL, a first ELI, and a first TL; and sending the second packet to the first Egress LSR through the first MPLS tunnel.

Many hybrid cloud topologies require virtual machines in a public cloud to use a router in a private cloud, even when the virtual machine is transmitting to another virtual machine in the public cloud. Routing data through an enterprise router on the private cloud via the internet is generally inefficient. This problem can be overcome by placing a router within the public cloud that mirrors much of the routing functionality of the enterprise router. A switch configured to intercept address resolution protocol (ARP) request for the enterprise router's address and fabricate a response using the MAC address of the router in the public cloud.

Various systems and methods for performing fast fail-over. One method involves receiving a packet at a primary forwarder node of a core network, determining whether the packet was received from a secondary forwarder node of the core network, via a tunnel, and, in response to a determination that the packet was received via the tunnel, forwarding the packet to another node in the core network. The tunnel communicatively couples the primary forwarder node and the secondary forwarder node. The primary forwarder node and the secondary forwarder node communicatively couple a local network and the core network. The packet was transmitted from the local network.

A RAN node (2) receives, from a core network node (6, 7, 8), a first identifier that is used by a service, an application, or an edge server (5) to identify a radio terminal (1) connected to the RAN node (2), and associates the first identifier with a second identifier that is used by the RAN node (2) to identify the radio terminal (1). Further, the RAN node (2) communicates with the edge server (5) using the first identifier. It is thus, for example, possible to allow an MEC server (or an MEC application hosted on the MEC server) and a radio access network (RAN) node to directly exchange therebetween a control message regarding a specific radio terminal.

Various embodiments provide a packet transmission method and an apparatus. In those embodiments, a first device supports a first protocol layer, and replicates a packet at the first protocol layer. A second device supports a second protocol layer, and deduplicates the packet at the second protocol layer. When receiving a first packet, a first access device converts a sequence number of the first protocol layer in the first packet into a sequence number of the second protocol layer, and then sends, to the second device, a second packet that carries the sequence number of the second protocol layer and a data packet of the first packet. For example, if the first access network device receives two packets having same data packets, the first access network device separately coverts sequence numbers in the two packets without performing operations of first deduplicating and then replicating the packet.

In one embodiment, a device predicts a failure of a first tunnel in a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN). The device determines that no backup tunnel for the first tunnel exists in the SD-WAN that can satisfy one or more service level agreements (SLAs) of traffic on the first tunnel, were the traffic rerouted from the first tunnel onto that tunnel. The device predicts, using a machine learning model, that a backup tunnel for the first tunnel exists in the SD-WAN that can satisfy an SLA of a subset of the traffic on the first tunnel, in response to determining that no backup tunnel exists in the SD-WAN that can satisfy the one or more SLAs of the traffic on the first tunnel. The device proactively reroutes the subset of the traffic on the first tunnel onto the backup tunnel, in advance of the predicted failure of the first tunnel.

A method for processing data packets in a communication network includes establishing a path for a flow of the data packets through the communication network. At a node along the path having a plurality of aggregated ports, a port is selected from among the plurality to serve as part of the path. A label is chosen responsively to the selected port. The label is attached to the data packets in the flow at a point on the path upstream from the node. Upon receiving the data packets at the node, the data packets are switched through the selected port responsively to the label.

Apparatuses and methods enable connecting tunnels channeling data flow from a user terminal and to a mobile network through a virtual switch in a network device which is configured to provide a service by processing data in the data flow. A method performed by a device having one or more processors includes establishing a first tunnel between the device and a node of the mobile network, and a second tunnel between the device and another network device of the mobile network, the first tunnel and the second tunnel operating according to Internet protocols. The method further includes connecting the first tunnel to the second tunnel using a virtual switch running on the device, and connecting a virtual machine running on the device to the virtual switch, the virtual machine being configured to provide a service by processing data in the data flow.