High availability transport protocol method and apparatus

摘要

A system and method supporting efficient, scalable stateful switchover of transport layer connections in a telecommunications network element. One method involves receiving, at a network element comprising an active transport protocol process coupled to a standby protocol process, a request to configure a first transport layer connection maintained at the active transport protocol process for stateful switchover; receiving an event associated with the first transport layer connection; creating a message containing replicated event information based on the received event; sending the message to the standby transport protocol process; and processing the message at the standby transport protocol process, wherein the standby transport protocol process replicates state information for the first connection.

主权项

1. A network element comprising:
an active route processor coupled to a computer-readable storage medium storing one or more first sequences of instructions comprising active high availability process logic and active transport communications logic; a standby route processor coupled to a second computer-readable storage medium storing one or more second sequences of instructions comprising standby high availability process logic and standby transport communications logic; an inter-process communication (IPC) service configured to facilitate communications between the active route processor and the standby route processor; wherein the first sequences of instructions, when executed, cause the active route processor to perform: receiving an event associated with a transport layer connection; in response to determining that a request to configure the transport layer connection for a stateful switchover was received at the network element, creating a message containing replicated event information based on the received event, and sending the message to the standby route processor without checkpointing data carried via the transport layer connection; wherein the message includes values of variables, window sizes and timers of the transport layer connection; wherein the second sequences of instructions, when executed, cause the standby route processor to perform:
receiving the message from the active route processor;processing the message to recreate a state for the transport layer connection at the standby route processor based on the replicated event information included in the message and not based upon the data carried via the transport layer connection;based on the replicated event information included in the message, recreating at the standby route processor the state for the transport layer connection that is equivalent to state information maintained by the active route processor.