Keysight Technologies, Inc.

Keysight Technologies Singapore (holdings) Pte. Ltd.

Anue Systems, Inc.

Keysight Technologies Singapore (holding) Pte Ltd

Robin Lee O'Connor

Stefan Jan Johansson

Shardendu Pandey

Keith E Cheney

Alan Richard Schwenk

Bogdan Tenea

Bogdan Ţenea

Salomon Noubieli Tatang

Costel Corciu

Fred Strelzoff

Jason Chia-Suan Wang

Vlad Manaila

According to one method for control plane traffic filtering in a control and user plane separation (CUPS) environment, the method occurs at a network node implemented using at least one processor and at least one memory. The method includes receiving, from one or more sources, network location information associated with a first network location; receiving control plane messages for different network locations; filtering the control plane messages based on the network location information; and sending traffic including data from the filtered control plane messages to at least one network tool.

Methods, systems, and computer readable media for control plane traffic filtering in a control and user plane separation (CUPS) environment

Systems and methods are disclosed for subscriber sampling for network packet forwarding based upon unique subscriber identifiers. Control packets within input packets are processed to identify unique subscriber identifiers and related session identifiers, which are stored in records within a tracking table. Each input packet is analyzed to extract a session identifier and a unique subscriber identifier if present within the input packet. When a unique subscriber identifier is not present, the tracking table is accessed to determine a unique subscriber identifier associated with the session identifier extracted from the packet. The input packet is sampled based upon the unique subscriber identifier to determine whether or not to output the input packet as a sampled packet. The subscriber sampling can include hash-based sampling, dynamic function based sampling, and/or other subscriber/call based sampling methods. Sampled packets are forwarded to egress port(s) for further processing.

Subscriber sampling for network packet forwarding based upon unique subscriber identifiers

The subject matter described herein includes methods, systems, and computer readable media for correlating, load balancing and filtering tapped GTP and non-GTP packets. One method for correlating, load balancing and filtering tapped GTP and non-GTP packets includes receiving GTP packets tapped from a plurality of GTP network tap points. The method further includes receiving non-GTP packets tapped from at least one non-GTP network tap point. The method further includes correlating GTP packets with non-GTP packets for a particular subscriber. The method further includes forwarding the GTP packets and non-GTP packets correlated for the particular subscriber to a network monitoring tool.

Correlating tapped general packet radio service (GPRS) tunneling protocol (GTP) and non-GTP packets for a subscriber's session for load balancing and filtering monitored traffic in a mobile network

Pre-sorter systems and methods are disclosed for distributing GTP packets. The pre-sorter forwards GTP packets based upon entries within one or more pre-sort tables, and the entries associate F-TEIDs with output ports that can be coupled to GTP sessions controllers and/or other external systems. The F-TEIDs represent a combination of a destination IP address and a tunnel endpoint identifier (TEID) for each GTP packet. For some embodiments, GTP session controllers analyze the GTP packets and determine F-TEIDs that are created, modified, and/or dropped for user sessions, and the GTP session controllers send control messages to the pre-sorter to determine the entries stored within the pre-sort table(s). For other embodiments, other external systems such as network monitoring tools are coupled to the GTP packet pre-sorter rather than GTP session controllers. Pre-sorters having multiple pre-sort modules with local pre-sort tables, as well as two-stage pre-sort architectures, can also be used.

Pre-sorter systems and methods for distributing GTP packets

Systems and methods are disclosed to provide egress port overload protection for network packet forwarding systems. Input packets are received at one or more ingress ports and load balanced among a plurality of egress ports for the packet forwarding system. Load balanced packets associated with each egress port are then sampled to generate sampled load balanced packets that are output from the egress port. For certain embodiments, a sampling percentage is used for the packet sampling, and the sampling percentage for each egress port is set based upon a comparison of a current traffic rate for the egress port to a threshold rate for the egress port. The threshold rates for the egress ports are allowed to be configured through a user interface. Further, session and non-session traffic can be identified, and session aware load balancing and/or per-port packet sampling can be applied.

Egress port overload protection for network packet forwarding systems

Systems and methods are disclosed for mobile user identification and tracking for load balancing in packet processing systems. Packet processing systems, such as network tool optimizer (NTO) systems, are configured to receive packets associated with multiple mobile users, to extract user identification information from the packets, to store identity binding information for the mobile users, to track changes in identification information for mobile users within a communication system by analyzing control information within packets for the communication system, and to forward packets to one or more tool ports associated with the packet processing system. The packet processing systems disclosed thereby allow for user packets to be identified and sent to the same load-balanced network tool, even though the user identification information changes over time within the communication system. The disclosed embodiments are useful for a wide variety of mobile and/or non-mobile communication systems and related communication protocols.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Robin Lee O'Connor