Peer-to-Peer Forwarding for Packet-Switched Traffic

摘要

Establishing peer-to-peer tunnels between clients in a mobility domain. In normal operation, clients attached to a network having access nodes connected to a central controller transfer all traffic through the central controller. This traffic is passed using tunnels between the access node and the central controller. Tunnels may be encrypted, and GRE tunnels may be used. A mobility manager operating in the controller tracks access nodes connected to the controller, and clients connected to those access nodes. When the mobility controller recognizes traffic passing between clients in its mobility domain that is eligible for peer-to-peer forwarding, it instructs the access nodes supporting the clients to establish a peer-to-peer tunnel between the nodes, and direct the client traffic through this peer-to-peer tunnel. The peer-to-peer tunnel may be session based, or may be aged. Eligibility of traffic for peer-to-peer tunnels may be controlled by rules, such as limiting peer-to-peer tunnels by source or destination, by port or protocol, and the like.

主权项

1. A system comprising:
at least one device including a hardware processor; wherein the system is configured to perform operations comprising: determining that data traffic is passing through a network device while propagating from (i) a first client communicatively coupled to a first access node to (ii) a second client communicatively coupled to a second access node; determining, by the network device, that the data traffic passing through the network device from the first client to the second client is eligible for peer-to-peer forwarding; instructing, by the network device, the first access node to open a tunnel to the second access node, wherein the tunnel does not include the network device; wherein additional data traffic eligible for peer-to-peer forwarding travels between the first client and the second client through the tunnel without passing through the network device.