Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP

Don Fedyk

Bruce E LaVigne

Paul Allen Bottorff

Barak Perlman

In an example, a hierarchical chaining gateway (hCG) includes a first communication interface corresponding to a first domain using a first chaining protocol, and a second communication interface corresponding to a second domain using a second and different chaining protocol. The hCG receives a service packet including a first service function chain header via the first communication interface. The hCG also identifies a key identifier in the service packet, and retrieves a second service function chain header based on the key identifier. Then, the hCG transforms the service packet by substituting the first service function chain header corresponding to first domain in the service packet with the second service function chain header corresponding to the second domain. Next, the hCG transmits the service packet including the second service function chain header via the second communication interface corresponding to the second domain.

Transforming a service packet from a first domain to a second domain

Example implementations relate to load balancing network traffic flows in a network switching device. According to an example, in a network switching device, a method to load balance network traffic flows across links of the device includes identifying a flow of the network traffic flows as an elephant flow. In response to identifying the flow as an elephant flow, the method collects remote utilization information for the flow. The method recomputes a path for the flow based on local utilization information and the collected remote utilization information and sends the flow along the recomputed path.

Load balancing

Some examples herein disclose a load balancer to identify a service function among multiple service functions based on an available capacity. The load balancer modifies a switch address in the packet and distributes the packet to the identified service function based on the modified switch address.

Packet distribution based on an identified service function

Example implementations relate to load balancing network traffic flows in a network switching device. According to an example, a network switching device may include a port to receive a packet in a network flow, a bin mapper module to map the packet to a bin of a plurality of bins, and a path determination module to determine available paths from the network switching device to a destination device for the packet. The device can also include a profile score module to determine a profile score for each candidate link implicated by the determined available paths, the profile score being based on a proportion of the available paths that use the candidate link. The device can also include a link-usage-by-destination score module to determine, for each candidate link, a link-usage-by-destination score that represents an amount of traffic that has been sent on each candidate link to the destination relative to all candidate links. A load balancer can then select a candidate link for the network flow based on comparing the profile scores of the candidate links with the link-usage-by-destination scores of the candidate links and create a bin-link mapping between the bin and the selected candidate link.

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Andover, MA, United States of America

Don Fedyk