US 12,464,056 B2
Sustainability-based service function chain branching
Carlos M. Pignataro, Cary, NC (US); and Nagendra Kumar Nainar, Morrisville, NC (US)
Assigned to CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed by Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed on Jun. 12, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/332,884.
Prior Publication US 2024/0414245 A1, Dec. 12, 2024
Int. Cl. H04L 67/63 (2022.01); G06F 1/3287 (2019.01); H04L 47/2425 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 67/63 (2022.05) [G06F 1/3287 (2013.01); H04L 47/2425 (2013.01)] 21 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
at a service function forwarder of a service function chain of service functions, wherein the service function forwarder is capable of shutting down increasingly more parts of the service function forwarder to achieve different levels of power savings:
upon receiving network traffic packets, determining, based on metadata contained in a header of the network traffic packets, a particular service function of the service functions to which the network traffic packets should be forwarded, wherein the metadata comprises energy sustainability criteria information that indicates (i) a sustainability constrained instruction used for making a branching selection among the service functions based on energy efficiency and/or energy sustainability of respective service functions, and (ii) an operating instruction selected from level of sleep instructions to shut down one or more parts of the service function forwarder to achieve the power savings;
responsive to the operating instruction, shutting down the one or more parts; and
forwarding, by the service function forwarder, the network traffic packets to the particular service function based on the determining.