Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Rachee Singh

Paramvir Bahl

Ryan Andrew Beckett

Sharad Agarwal

Abhishek Udupa

Nikolaj Skallerud Bjorner

Jitendra Dattatraya Padhye

Umesh Krishnaswamy

Yawei Yin

Karthick Jayaraman

Jamie Dorea Gaudette

Wei Bai

Steven Jeffrey Benaloh

Christopher Scott Johnston

Neha Milind Raje

John Frederick Arnold

Sarah Elisabeth McClure

Himanshu Raj

Matt Calder

Sarah Elisabeth Mcclure

A system manages network traffic in a distributed system comprising a plurality of network devices. The network devices are divided into a plurality of network slices, each of the network slices including a subset of the network devices such that there is no overlap of network devices between the network slices. Individual network slices are associated with individual slice controllers, and an individual slice controller is configured to manage network routing of an individual network slice. Each of the individual slice controllers route the network traffic within each respective individual network slice. The network traffic is independently routed based on expected network conditions for each respective individual network slice, and data defining routing decisions is contained within each network slice to limit fault effects between the network slices.

Decentralized wide-area network traffic engineering

Systems and methods are provided for determining an optical bypass for an inter-regional wide area network (WAN) for regions of server facilities of a cloud service provider. In particular, the optical bypass connects non-adjacent regional server centers of the WAN by eliminating needs of data conversions at intermediate regional server centers. The determining the optical bypass includes receiving a WAN topology data, capacity and demand information about the WAN. The determining includes an objective function to maximize a number of network resources to free up by determining a revised data flow and bandwidth allocations by introducing the optical bypass in the WAN. The disclosed technology transmits the determined data traffic flow and resource allocation information of the optical bypass, causing a network traffic enforcers to reconfigure the WAN.

Methods for capacity provisioning in wide area networks using optical bypassing

Ghost routing is a network verification technique that uses a portion of a production network itself to verify the impact of potential network changes. Ghost routing logically partitions the production network into a main network and a ghost network. The main network handles live traffic while the ghost network handles traffic generated for diagnostic purposes. The ghost network may have a network topology identical to the production network and may use the same hardware and software as the production network. An operator may implement a network configuration change on the ghost network and then use verification tools to verify that the network configuration change on the ghost network does not result in bugs. Verifying on the ghost network may not affect the main network. If the network operator verifies the network configuration change on the ghost network, the network operator may implement the network configuration change on the main network.

Ghost routing

Infrastructure comprising a wide area network (WAN) is adapted as a transport network portion of a 5G network in which the WAN is sliced at the optical layer on a discrete wavelength basis to provide dedicated network capacity to customers such as service providers, application providers, and network operators. Optical layer slicing extends the slicing construct for a radio access network (RAN) portion of the 5G network through to the WAN to provide end-to-end 5G network slicing from user equipment (UE) accessing an air interface of the network to application servers that are instantiated in data centers in a network cloud portion of the 5G network.

Dedicated wide area network slices

The present application relates to egressing traffic from a public cloud network. An egress traffic manager configures routing at hosts and edge routers within the public cloud network. The egress traffic manager determines, for an edge router, a plurality of current border gateway protocol (BGP) sessions with external networks. The egress traffic manager configures a virtual router hosted on the edge router to route a portion of egress traffic to a selected one of the external networks via one of the BGP sessions. A host is configured to route the portion of egress traffic within the public cloud network to the edge router. An edge router configured to route, by the virtual router, the portion of egress traffic from the edge router to the selected one of the external networks.

Egress traffic engineering in public clouds with commodity routers on the WAN edge

Described are examples for providing a system for managing configuration and policies for a virtualized wide area network (vWAN) support on a wide area network (WAN). The vWAN includes a plurality of virtual network entities associated with geographic locations including the physical computing resources of the WAN and virtual connections between the virtual network entities. The system includes a network safety component for managing configurations and policies of the vWAN on the WAN. The network safety component receives a change to a policy or configuration of the vWAN from an operator of a network connected to the vWAN. The network safety component evaluates a set of safety rules for the operator based on the change and a network state of a physical WAN underlying the vWAN. The network safety component generates an error message in response to at least one of the set of safety rules failing the evaluation.

Automatic verification of safety for virtualized networks

Software-defined networking and network function virtualization constructs are leveraged across diverse portions of 5G network infrastructure including radio access network, mobile core, and wide area network to enable a security property to be implemented for a network slice from end-to-end to provide for strong logical and/or physical isolation of slice traffic from other network traffic. One or more network slice controllers are implemented in the 5G network that are interoperable as separate elements, or under centralized control, to enable the underlying diverse network infrastructure to be abstracted and virtualized so that infrastructure properties can be mapped across infrastructure types for the end-to-end slice. Network resources may be dynamically allocated based on real-time traffic demands to instantiate the end-to-end network slices on a customized basis to meet particular quality of service parameters for various traffic types, including privileged traffic that may be prioritized when resources become scarce and network congestion occurs.

End-to-end secure communications for privileged 5G network traffic

Systems and methods for routing packet data for transmission via a plurality of communication links are described. A method may include dividing a usage cycle for the plurality of communication links into a plurality of timeslots. Packet data traffic demands for the packet data for transmission via the plurality of communication links may be received. Based on a mixed integer linear programming model, an allocation of the packet data traffic demands to the plurality of communication links during the usage cycle may be determined using binary constraints of the mixed integer linear programming model. The binary constraints may prioritize respective subsets of the plurality of timeslots for at least some of the plurality of communication links. For each of the plurality of timeslots, an allocation of the packet data traffic demands to each of the plurality of communication links may be determined using the mixed integer linear programming model.

Traffic engineering for improved bandwidth allocations

Described are examples for providing management of a virtual wide area network (vWAN) based on operator policies. A network orchestrator presents, to a network operator, a representation of the vWAN including virtual network entities associated with respective geographic locations and virtual connections between the virtual network entities. The network orchestrator receives a policy for the virtual wide area network from the network operator via the representation, the policy to be implemented at one or more of the virtual connections. The network orchestrator translates the policy for the virtual wide area network into a configuration of an underlying wide area network (WAN). The underlying WAN a plurality of geographically distributed physical computing resources in geographic regions corresponding to the virtual network entities and connections there between.

Representation and orchestration for virtual wide area networks

The present application relates to communications between a partner network and a wide area network (WAN) via the Internet. Although Internet service providers may act as autonomous systems, the WAN may control routing from the partner network by advertising unicast border gateway protocol (BGP) address prefixes for a plurality of front-end devices in the WAN. An agent in the partner network measures a plurality of paths to a service within the WAN. Each of the plurality of paths is associated with one of the plurality of front-end devices and a respective unicast BGP address prefix. The WAN selects a path within the WAN for the service. The WAN exports a routing rule to the agent. The agent forwards data packets for the service to the respective BGP address prefix via the Internet. The WAN receives data packets for the service of the partner network at the selected device.

Guarantying SLA thru edge cloud path orchestration

The system disclosed herein implements an improved end-to-end network performance for data transmissions that span multiple networks operated by different organizations. The improvements are achieved as a result of exchanging routing information. For instance, the exchanged routing information can be representative of network performance factors. When different operators of different networks agree to exchange routing information, an optimal end-to-end path between two endpoint devices can be identified and selected for data transmission. This benefits both network operators as the users served by the networks are more likely to be satisfied with the user experience (e.g., faster download and upload of data).

Routing information exchange between separate networks to improve end-to-end network performance for users

The present application relates to communications between a partner network and a wide area network (WAN). The partner network and WAN may exchange representations of the respective networks including a delay profile for the partner network. The WAN receives a network delay profile for multiple virtual network entities within the partner network. The multiple virtual network entities include at least a plurality of peering locations with the WAN. The WAN determines a path from the partner network through the WAN via a selected peering location of the plurality of peering locations with the WAN to a destination based on at least the network delay profile. The WAN deploys a policy for an agent within the partner network. The policy identifies traffic for the destination to route through the WAN via the selected peering location. The WAN routes traffic from the selected peering location to the destination along the path.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Rachee Singh