Abstract
Cloud-based networking uses various stateful networking functions. There is currently no mechanism to synchronize the states of the functions across different binaries. As a result, the functions cannot be used on stateless devices that provide higher throughput or scalability. This disclosure describes techniques to synchronize states in distributed networking systems. The network function state is defined and maintained in a distributed manner and is sharded in units of flows. A shard is assigned an owner, which handles the flows in the shard. State synchronization is achieved by having the shard owner write actions for flows it owns, and by having other nodes update their local states by listening for state updates from the shard owner. Upon receiving a packet, a distributed-system component looks up the local state to find a matching flow and, if found, applies actions on the flow. If no matching flow is found, the flow is redirected to its owner. Upon receiving the flow, the flow owner determines its actions and writes to the state-store, which gets synchronized to other components of the distributed system.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
NA, "Redirect-and-Sync for Distributed Stateful Network Applications", Technical Disclosure Commons, (November 17, 2024)
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/7541