Patents by Inventor Pierre Pfister
Pierre Pfister has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
-
Publication number: 20240106679Abstract: This disclosure describes methods and systems to externally manage network-to-network interconnect configuration data in conjunction with a centralized database subsystem. An example of the methods includes receiving and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, data indicative of user intent to interconnect at least a first network and a second network. The example method further includes, based at least in part on the data indicative of user intent, determining and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, a network intent that corresponds to the user intent. The example method further includes providing data indicative of the network intent from the centralized database subsystem to a first data plane adaptor, associated with the first network, and a second data plane adaptor, associated with the second network.Type: ApplicationFiled: December 11, 2023Publication date: March 28, 2024Inventors: Pierre Pfister, William Mark Townsley, Yoann Desmouceaux, David Delano Ward
-
Patent number: 11855802Abstract: This disclosure describes methods and systems to externally manage network-to-network interconnect configuration data in conjunction with a centralized database subsystem. An example of the methods includes receiving and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, data indicative of user intent to interconnect at least a first network and a second network. The example method further includes, based at least in part on the data indicative of user intent, determining and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, a network intent that corresponds to the user intent. The example method further includes providing data indicative of the network intent from the centralized database subsystem to a first data plane adaptor, associated with the first network, and a second data plane adaptor, associated with the second network.Type: GrantFiled: January 5, 2023Date of Patent: December 26, 2023Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.Inventors: Pierre Pfister, William Mark Townsley, Yoann Desmouceaux, David Delano Ward
-
Publication number: 20230403235Abstract: Load aware load balancing may be provided. Flow duration data associated with a plurality of flows associated with a plurality of servers may be obtained. Then a plurality of queue lengths respectively associated with the plurality of servers may be obtained. Next, a Shortest Expected Delay (SED) score may be determined for each of the plurality of servers based on the flow duration data and the plurality of queue lengths. A flow may then be assigned to a one of the plurality of servers having the lowest SED score.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 18, 2022Publication date: December 14, 2023Applicant: Cisco Technology, Inc.Inventors: Zhiyuan Yao, Yoann Louis Simon Desmouceaux, Pierre Pfister, William Mark Townsley
-
Patent number: 11822443Abstract: This disclosure describes techniques for providing a distributed scalable architecture for Network Address Translation (NAT) systems with high availability and mitigations for flow breakage during failover events. The NAT servers may include functionality to serve as fast-path servers and/or slow-path servers. A fast-path server may include a NAT worker that includes a cache of NAT mappings to perform stateful network address translation and to forward packets with minimal latency. A slow-path server may include a mapping server that creates new NAT mappings, depreciates old ones, and answers NAT worker state requests. The NAT system may use virtual mapping servers (VMSs) running on primary physical servers with state duplicated VMSs on different physical failover servers.Type: GrantFiled: September 2, 2022Date of Patent: November 21, 2023Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.Inventors: Pierre Pfister, Ian James Wells, Kyle Andrew Donald Mestery, William Mark Townsley, Yoann Desmouceaux, Guillaume Ruty, Aloys Augustin
-
Publication number: 20230179652Abstract: Techniques are described for providing a distributed application load-balancing architecture that supports multipath transport protocol for client devices connecting to an application service. Rather than having client devices generate new network five-tuples for new subflows to the application servers, the techniques described herein include shifting the burden to the application servers to ensure that the new network five-tuples land in the same bucket in the consistent hashing table. The application servers may receive a hashing function utilized by the load balancers to generate the hash of the network five-tuple. By having the application servers generate the hashes, the load balancers are able to continue stateless, low-level processing of the packets to route them to the correct application servers. In this way, additional subflows can be opened for client devices according to a multipath transport protocol while ensuring that the subflows are routed to the correct application server.Type: ApplicationFiled: January 26, 2023Publication date: June 8, 2023Inventors: Yoann Desmouceaux, Pierre Pfister, Aloys Augustin, Mohammed Hawari
-
Patent number: 11665129Abstract: According to certain embodiments, a system comprises one or more processors and one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause one or more components of the system to perform operations. The operations comprise receiving a packet comprising a source address; selecting an uplink for the packet, the uplink selected from a plurality of uplinks based on an uplink selection policy; determining whether the source address is valid on the selected uplink; determining whether to keep or re-write the source address based on whether the source address is valid on the selected uplink; keeping the source address when the source address is valid on the selected uplink or re-writing the source address when the source address is not valid on the selected uplink; and sending the packet to the selected uplink.Type: GrantFiled: September 27, 2021Date of Patent: May 30, 2023Assignee: CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC.Inventors: Yoann Desmouceaux, Rucha Sanjay Vaidya, Murali Muniraman, Pierre Pfister
-
Publication number: 20230155859Abstract: This disclosure describes methods and systems to externally manage network-to-network interconnect configuration data in conjunction with a centralized database subsystem. An example of the methods includes receiving and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, data indicative of user intent to interconnect at least a first network and a second network. The example method further includes, based at least in part on the data indicative of user intent, determining and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, a network intent that corresponds to the user intent. The example method further includes providing data indicative of the network intent from the centralized database subsystem to a first data plane adaptor, associated with the first network, and a second data plane adaptor, associated with the second network.Type: ApplicationFiled: January 5, 2023Publication date: May 18, 2023Inventors: Pierre Pfister, William Mark Townsley, Yoann Desmouceaux, David Delano Ward
-
Patent number: 11575540Abstract: This disclosure describes methods and systems to externally manage network-to-network interconnect configuration data in conjunction with a centralized database subsystem. An example of the methods includes receiving and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, data indicative of user intent to interconnect at least a first network and a second network. The example method further includes, based at least in part on the data indicative of user intent, determining and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, a network intent that corresponds to the user intent. The example method further includes providing data indicative of the network intent from the centralized database subsystem to a first data plane adaptor, associated with the first network, and a second data plane adaptor, associated with the second network.Type: GrantFiled: February 14, 2022Date of Patent: February 7, 2023Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.Inventors: Pierre Pfister, William Mark Townsley, Yoann Desmouceaux, David Delano Ward
-
Patent number: 11570239Abstract: Techniques are described for providing a distributed application load-balancing architecture that supports multipath transport protocol for client devices connecting to an application service. Rather than having client devices generate new network five-tuples for new subflows to the application servers, the techniques described herein include shifting the burden to the application servers to ensure that the new network five-tuples land in the same bucket in the consistent hashing table. The application servers may receive a hashing function utilized by the load balancers to generate the hash of the network five-tuple. By having the application servers generate the hashes, the load balancers are able to continue stateless, low-level processing of the packets to route them to the correct application servers. In this way, additional subflows can be opened for client devices according to a multipath transport protocol while ensuring that the subflows are routed to the correct application server.Type: GrantFiled: April 20, 2020Date of Patent: January 31, 2023Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.Inventors: Yoann Desmouceaux, Pierre Pfister, Aloys Augustin, Mohammed Hawari
-
Publication number: 20220413975Abstract: This disclosure describes techniques for providing a distributed scalable architecture for Network Address Translation (NAT) systems with high availability and mitigations for flow breakage during failover events. The NAT servers may include functionality to serve as fast-path servers and/or slow-path servers. A fast-path server may include a NAT worker that includes a cache of NAT mappings to perform stateful network address translation and to forward packets with minimal latency. A slow-path server may include a mapping server that creates new NAT mappings, depreciates old ones, and answers NAT worker state requests. The NAT system may use virtual mapping servers (VMSs) running on primary physical servers with state duplicated VMSs on different physical failover servers.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 2, 2022Publication date: December 29, 2022Inventors: Pierre Pfister, Ian James Wells, Kyle Andrew Donald Mestery, William Mark Townsley, Yoann Desmouceaux, Guillaume Ruty, Aloys Augustin
-
Publication number: 20220407736Abstract: Methods, network devices and computer readable media are disclosed relating to a communication network. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a message comprising a message bit array. The message bit array identifies egress nodes for the message within a bit indexed explicit replication (BIER) domain of a communications network. A first bit position in the message bit array represents a first one or more of the egress nodes, and a bit value at the first bit position indicates that the message is to be forwarded to one of the first one or more of the egress nodes. The method further includes accessing a first forwarding table entry corresponding to the first bit position, determining whether the first bit position is an anycast bit position having multiple corresponding forwarding table entries, and forwarding the message to one of the first one or more of the egress nodes.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 24, 2022Publication date: December 22, 2022Inventors: Ijsbrand Wijnands, Pierre Pfister, Neale D.R Ranns, W. Mark Townsley, Gregory J. Shepherd
-
Patent number: 11470176Abstract: The present technology provides a system, method and computer readable medium for steering a content request among plurality of cache servers based on multi-level assessment of content popularity. In some embodiments a three levels of popularity may be determined comprising popular, semi-popular and unpopular designations for the queried content. The processing of the query and delivery of the requested content depends on the aforementioned popularity level designation and comprises a acceptance of the query at the edge cache server to which the query was originally directed, rejection of the query and re-direction to a second edge cache server or redirection of the query to origin server to thereby deliver the requested content. The proposed technology results in higher hit ratio for edge cache clusters by steering requests for semi-popular content to one or more additional cache servers while forwarding request for unpopular content to origin server.Type: GrantFiled: January 29, 2019Date of Patent: October 11, 2022Assignee: CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC.Inventors: Marcel Paul Sosthène Enguehard, Yoann Desmouceaux, Pierre Pfister, William Mark Townsley, Eric Vyncke
-
Publication number: 20220294758Abstract: According to certain embodiments, a system comprises one or more processors and one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause one or more components of the system to perform operations. The operations comprise receiving a packet comprising a source address; selecting an uplink for the packet, the uplink selected from a plurality of uplinks based on an uplink selection policy; determining whether the source address is valid on the selected uplink; determining whether to keep or re-write the source address based on whether the source address is valid on the selected uplink; keeping the source address when the source address is valid on the selected uplink or re-writing the source address when the source address is not valid on the selected uplink; and sending the packet to the selected uplink.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 27, 2021Publication date: September 15, 2022Inventors: Yoann Desmouceaux, Rucha Sanjay Vaidya, Murali Muniraman, Pierre Pfister
-
Patent number: 11438186Abstract: Methods, network devices and computer readable media are disclosed relating to a communication network. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a message comprising a message bit array. The message bit array identifies egress nodes for the message within a bit indexed explicit replication (BIER) domain of a communications network. A first bit position in the message bit array represents a first one or more of the egress nodes, and a bit value at the first bit position indicates that the message is to be forwarded to one of the first one or more of the egress nodes. The method further includes accessing a first forwarding table entry corresponding to the first bit position, determining whether the first bit position is an anycast bit position having multiple corresponding forwarding table entries, and forwarding the message to one of the first one or more of the egress nodes.Type: GrantFiled: March 30, 2020Date of Patent: September 6, 2022Assignee: CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC.Inventors: Ijsbrand Wijnands, Pierre Pfister, Neale D. R. Ranns, W. Mark Townsley, Gregory J. Shepherd
-
Patent number: 11436111Abstract: This disclosure describes techniques for providing a distributed scalable architecture for Network Address Translation (NAT) systems with high availability and mitigations for flow breakage during failover events. The NAT servers may include functionality to serve as fast-path servers and/or slow-path servers. A fast-path server may include a NAT worker that includes a cache of NAT mappings to perform stateful network address translation and to forward packets with minimal latency. A slow-path server may include a mapping server that creates new NAT mappings, depreciates old ones, and answers NAT worker state requests. The NAT system may use virtual mapping servers (VMSs) running on primary physical servers with state duplicated VMSs on different physical failover servers.Type: GrantFiled: October 3, 2019Date of Patent: September 6, 2022Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.Inventors: Pierre Pfister, Ian James Wells, Kyle Andrew Donald Mestery, William Mark Townsley, Yoann Desmouceaux, Guillaume Ruty, Aloys Augustin
-
Patent number: 11405236Abstract: This disclosure describes methods and systems to externally manage network-to-network interconnect configuration data in conjunction with a centralized database subsystem. An example of the methods includes receiving and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, data indicative of user intent to interconnect at least a first network and a second network. The example method further includes, based at least in part on the data indicative of user intent, determining and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, a network intent that corresponds to the user intent. The example method further includes providing data indicative of the network intent from the centralized database subsystem to a first data plane adaptor, associated with the first network, and a second data plane adaptor, associated with the second network.Type: GrantFiled: February 24, 2020Date of Patent: August 2, 2022Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.Inventors: Pierre Pfister, William Mark Townsley, Yoann Desmouceaux, David Delano Ward
-
Publication number: 20220166646Abstract: This disclosure describes methods and systems to externally manage network-to-network interconnect configuration data in conjunction with a centralized database subsystem. An example of the methods includes receiving and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, data indicative of user intent to interconnect at least a first network and a second network. The example method further includes, based at least in part on the data indicative of user intent, determining and storing, in the centralized database subsystem, a network intent that corresponds to the user intent. The example method further includes providing data indicative of the network intent from the centralized database subsystem to a first data plane adaptor, associated with the first network, and a second data plane adaptor, associated with the second network.Type: ApplicationFiled: February 14, 2022Publication date: May 26, 2022Inventors: Pierre Pfister, William Mark Townsley, Yoann Desmouceaux, David Delano Ward
-
Patent number: 11233737Abstract: Aspects of the subject technology provide state-less load-balancing using sequence numbers to identify traffic flows. In some implementations, a process of the technology can include steps for receiving, by a load-balancer, a first packet from a source device including a request to access the service provided by a server coupled to the load-balancer, determining a load for each of the servers, wherein each server is associated with a unique set of sequence numbers, and forwarding the request to a target server selected based on its corresponding load, and wherein the request is configured to cause the target server to issue a reply to the source device. Systems and machine-readable media are also provided.Type: GrantFiled: December 16, 2019Date of Patent: January 25, 2022Assignee: CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC.Inventors: Pierre Pfister, Yoann Desmouceaux, William Mark Townsley
-
Patent number: 11216298Abstract: Techniques for zero-loss workload mobility with segment routing for virtual machines are presented. The techniques include receiving, by a virtual router, an electronic message destined for a first virtual machine running on a first physical machine and checking a first virtual machine state for the first virtual machine. In response to determining that it is associated with a running state indicating the first physical machine, inserting a segment routing header including an indication of the source virtual machine, the first physical machine, and the first virtual machine. In response to determining that it is associated with a migration state, inserting, by the virtual router, a segment routing header indicating the source virtual machine, an END.S for the first physical machine, the first virtual machine; and an END.SBUF for a second physical machine. The message is then routed based at least in part on the inserted segment routing header.Type: GrantFiled: March 25, 2020Date of Patent: January 4, 2022Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.Inventors: Yoann Desmouceaux, Pierre Pfister, William Mark Townsley
-
Patent number: 11218454Abstract: A message is received which indicates a request for a client-specific service address for service or content provided by a service provider. In response to the request, a client-specific service address may be generated and sent to the client. The address may be used as a destination address in one or more subsequent client requests for service or content. A first portion of the address comprises an IPv6 service prefix assigned to a service network of the service provider. A second portion of the address comprises semantic information having a first portion of encrypted private information and a second portion of unencrypted service information. The encrypted private information may be generated by encrypting private information based on a cryptographic key, where the cryptographic key is derived based on a secret key associated with the service provider and an IP client prefix assigned to the client.Type: GrantFiled: February 5, 2019Date of Patent: January 4, 2022Assignee: CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC.Inventors: Eric Vyncke, Guillaume Ruty, Pierre Pfister, Andre Jean-Marie Surcouf