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EP-4226597-B1 - TRACKING APPLICATION SCALING FOR NETWORK BANDWIDTH ALLOCATION

EP4226597B1EP 4226597 B1EP4226597 B1EP 4226597B1EP-4226597-B1

Inventors

  • JAKAB, LORAND
  • RODRIGUEZ NATAL, Alberto
  • MAINO, FABIO R.
  • APOSTOLOPOULOS, JOHN G.

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20210922

Claims (10)

  1. A method comprising: allocating a first amount of bandwidth of a physical underlay of a network for data flows associated with an application; receiving (304), at a network controller (102) associated with the network and from a scalable application service (104) hosting the application, an indication of an amount of computing resources of the scalable application service that are allocated to host the application; determining (306), based at least in part on the amount of computing resources, a second amount of bandwidth of the physical underlay to allocate for the data flows; and allocating (308) the second amount of bandwidth of the physical underlay of the network for the data flows associated with the application.
  2. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of the amount of computing resources comprises an indication of a number of replicas of the application generated by the scalable application service.
  3. The method of claim 1 or 2, further comprising receiving, at the network controller, a user defined bandwidth-allocation model specifying respective amounts of bandwidth of the physical underlay to allocate for the data flows based at least in part on respective amounts of computing resources of the scalable application service that are allocated to host applications, and wherein determining the second amount of bandwidth is further based at least in part on the bandwidth-allocation model.
  4. The method of any of claims 1 to 3, wherein the second amount of bandwidth is greater than the first amount of bandwidth such that additional data flows associated with the application can utilize the physical underlay.
  5. The method of any of claims 1 to 4, wherein allocating the second amount of bandwidth comprises sending, to an application programming interface, API, associated with the network, a request for the API to allocate the second amount of bandwidth of the physical underlay of the network.
  6. The method of any of claims 1 to 5, further comprising sending, to an application programming interface, API, associated with the scalable application service, a request for the API to provide the indication of the amount of computing resources that are allocated to host the application, and wherein receiving the indication is based at least in part on the request.
  7. The method of any of claims 1 to 6, wherein determining the second amount of bandwidth is further based at least in part on a prior amount of bandwidth of the physical underlay that was allocated for the data flows at a time when the amount of the computing resources of the scalable application service were allocated to host the application.
  8. A network controller (102), the network controller being associated with a network, comprising: means for allocating a first amount of bandwidth of a physical underlay of said network for data flows associated with an application; means for receiving, from a scalable application service (104) hosting the application, an indication of an amount of computing resources of the scalable application service that are allocated to host the application; means for determining, based at least in part on the amount of computing resources, a second amount of bandwidth of the physical underlay to allocate for the data flows; and means for allocating the second amount of bandwidth of the physical underlay of the network for the data flows associated with the application.
  9. The apparatus according to claim 8 further comprising means for implementing the method according to any of claims 2 to 7.
  10. A computer program, computer program product or computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the steps of the method of any of claims 1 to 7.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS This application claims priority to U.S. Utility Patent Application No. 17/147,724, filed January 13, 2021, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/089,323, filed October 8, 2020. TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure relates generally to tracking the compute capacity of a scalable application service platform to perform dynamic bandwidth allocation for data flows associated with applications hosted by the service platform. BACKGROUND In typical overlay network deployments that provide connectivity to applications, bandwidth in the underlay is usually over-provisioned and/or dynamically billed since bandwidth requirements of different applications might unpredictably change. Generally, underlay connectivity providers need to allocate enough bandwidth for these applications and constantly monitor actual bandwidth consumption to ensure adequate provisioning and billing, resulting in the provisioning and de-provisioning of bandwidth over time. On the other hand, overlay network controllers need not only make sure that the necessary bandwidth is actually provisioned in the underlay, but also that the application requirements in terms of bandwidth are actually met. Today, these operations are usually based on estimations by human operators of both the overlay and the underlay networks, observed behavior in the past, predictions of the future, and the like, all combined with a fair amount of guesswork. US2019/052532 discloses cross layer signaling for network resource scaling. EP 3 716 063 discloses scalable multi-tenant underlay network. CA 3 103 238 discloses optimization of computer-implemented application operations. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The detailed description is set forth below with reference to the accompanying figures. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference number identifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. The use of the same reference numbers in different figures indicates similar or identical items. The systems depicted in the accompanying figures are not to scale and components within the figures may be depicted not to scale with each other. FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a system-architecture diagram of an example environment in which a network controller may track compute capacity of an application service to dynamically allocate bandwidth for data flows associated with applications hosted by the application service.FIG. 2 illustrates a data flow diagram of an example process for tracking compute capacity of an application service to dynamically allocate bandwidth for data flows associated with applications hosted by the application service.FIG. 3 illustrates a flow diagram of an example method for tracking compute capacity of an application service to dynamically allocate bandwidth for data flows associated with applications hosted by the application service.FIG. 4 illustrates a flow diagram of another example method for tracking compute capacity of an application service to dynamically allocate bandwidth for data flows associated with applications hosted by the application service.FIG. 5 is a computer architecture diagram showing an illustrative computer hardware architecture for implementing a computing device that can be utilized to implement aspects of the various technologies presented herein. DESCRIPTION OF EXAMPLE EMBODIMENTS OVERVIEW Aspects of the invention are set out in the independent claims and preferred features are set out in the dependent claims. Features of one aspect may be applied to each aspect alone or in combination with other aspects. This disclosure describes various technologies for tracking the compute capacity of a scalable application service platform to perform dynamic bandwidth allocation for data flows associated with applications hosted by the service platform. By way of example, and not limitation, a method according to the various technologies presented herein may include allocating a first amount of bandwidth of a physical underlay of a network for data flows associated with an application. The method may also include receiving, at a network controller associated with the network and from a scalable application service hosting the application, an indication of an amount of computing resources of the scalable application service that are allocated to host the application. Based at least in part on the indications, a second amount of bandwidth of the physical underlay to allocate for the data flows may be determined. In this way, the method may include allocating the second amount of bandwidth of the physical underlay of the network for the data flows associated with the application. Additionally, the techniques described herein may be performed as a method and/or by a system having non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, performs the techniques described above. EXAMPLE EMBODIMENTS As