CN116962507A

CN116962507A - Information acquisition method, service chain proxy node, service chain and storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN116962507A
Application number: CN202210384664.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 黄灿灿; 陆立; 唐宏; 叶何亮; 邹洁; 范云凌
Original assignee: China Telecom Corp Ltd
Current assignee: China Telecom Corp Ltd
Priority date: 2022-04-13
Filing date: 2022-04-13
Publication date: 2023-10-27
Also published as: WO2023197499A1

Abstract

The disclosure provides an information acquisition method, a service chain proxy node, a service chain and a storage medium, and relates to the technical field of communication. The information acquisition method comprises the following steps: generating a first instruction according to an OAM acquisition request from a first domain; generating a first message according to the first instruction and a protocol of the second domain; and sending the first message to the node of the second domain, so that the node of the second domain can acquire OAM information according to the first instruction and feed back the OAM information. By the method, the comprehensiveness of the collected OAM information can be improved, and further the accuracy of analysis executed based on the OAM information can be improved.

Description

Information acquisition method, service chain proxy node, service chain and storage medium

Technical Field

The disclosure relates to the technical field of communication, in particular to an information acquisition method, a service chain proxy node, a service chain and a storage medium.

Background

In the related art, SF (Service Function) nodes on the SFC (Service Function Chain) are deployed at different periods, and some earlier devices (such as a firewall and a DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) have a specific Service Function, but these SF nodes (hereinafter referred to as SFC-unware SF nodes) do not have the capability of identifying the SFC protocol because of no upgrade and replacement. When an SFF (Service Function Forwarder, service function forwarding) node forwards a message to an SF node of the SFC-unware, the SF discards the message as the data message decodes an unrecognizable result.

Disclosure of Invention

The inventor finds that the SFC OAM (Operation Administration and Maintenance, operation maintenance management) information collection method in the related art is only suitable for collecting OAM information of devices capable of identifying the NSH header (for example, SFF nodes and SFC proxy nodes), and for the SF nodes of the SFC unware, since the SF nodes cannot read OAM requirement information carried in the NSH header, it is difficult to trigger to collect OAM information of themselves, which results in insufficient comprehensive OAM information of the collected SFC, and reduces the reference value.

An object of the present disclosure is to improve the comprehensiveness of OAM information collection.

According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present disclosure, there is provided an information acquisition method including: generating a first instruction according to an OAM acquisition request from a first domain; generating a first message according to the first instruction and a protocol of the second domain; and sending the first message to the node of the second domain, so that the node of the second domain can acquire OAM information according to the first instruction and feed back the OAM information.

In some embodiments, the information collection method further comprises: acquiring OAM information fed back by a node of the second domain; the OAM information is encapsulated according to a protocol of the first domain.

In some embodiments, the first instruction is code for execution by a node of the second domain, the node of the second domain obtaining OAM information by executing the first instruction.

In some embodiments, the first instruction is executable code of OAM requirement information.

In some embodiments, the OAM collection request is carried over an NSH (Network Service Header ) message.

In some embodiments, generating the first message according to the first instruction and the protocol of the second domain includes: adding the first instruction to a payload field of an NSH message; and acquiring the first message based on the data of the protocol encapsulation load field of the second domain.

In some embodiments, generating the first message according to the first instruction and the protocol of the second domain includes: the first instruction is used as the content of the load field, and the data of the load field is encapsulated based on the protocol of the second domain, so that a first message is obtained; the information acquisition method further comprises the following steps: and encapsulating the user data of the load field in the NSH message based on the protocol of the second domain to generate a third message, and transmitting the third message to the node of the second domain.

In some embodiments, obtaining OAM information fed back by a node of the second domain includes: acquiring a second message fed back by a node of a second domain; and extracting a payload field of the second message to obtain OAM information.

In some embodiments, encapsulating OAM information according to a protocol of the first domain includes: and encapsulating the OAM information into a message header of the NSH message.

In some embodiments, the nodes in the first domain are capable of supporting the service chaining SFC protocol; and nodes in the second domain do not have the capability to support the SFC protocol.

According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present disclosure, there is provided a service chain proxy node comprising: an instruction generation unit configured to generate a first instruction according to an OAM collection request from a first domain; the first message generation unit is configured to generate a first message according to a first instruction and a protocol of a second domain; and the first message sending unit is configured to send the first message to the node of the second domain so that the node of the second domain can acquire OAM information according to the first instruction and feed back the OAM information.

In some embodiments, the SFC proxy node further comprises: an information receiving unit configured to obtain OAM information fed back by a node of the second domain; and an encapsulation unit configured to encapsulate the OAM information according to the protocol of the first domain.

According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present disclosure, there is provided a service chain proxy node comprising: a memory; and a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to perform any of the information acquisition methods above based on instructions stored in the memory.

According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present disclosure, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium is presented, having stored thereon computer program instructions which, when executed by a processor, implement the steps of any of the information gathering methods above.

According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present disclosure, there is provided a service chain comprising: any of the SFC agent nodes mentioned above; a node of a first domain configured to send an operation, maintenance and administration, OAM, collection request to a node of a second domain through the SFC agent node; and a node of the second domain configured to collect OAM information according to a first instruction from the SFC agent node and feed back to the SFC agent node, wherein the SFC agent node is located between the node of the first domain and the node of the second domain.

In some embodiments, the nodes of the first domain comprise SFF nodes.

In some embodiments, the node of the second domain is configured to: extracting a load field of a first message from the SFC proxy node; the OAM information is obtained by running a first instruction carried in the load field; adding OAM information into a load field of the second message; and feeding back the second message to the SFC proxy node.

In some embodiments, the node of the second domain is further configured to: user data carried by the load field of the first message is obtained, and after the user data is processed, the processing result is carried by the load field of the second message.

In some embodiments, the node of the second domain is further configured to: acquiring a third message from the SFC proxy node, wherein a load field of the third message carries user data; and processing the user data, loading the processing result through a load field of the fourth message, and feeding back the fourth message to the SFC proxy node.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosure, illustrate and explain the present disclosure, and together with the description serve to explain the present disclosure. In the drawings:

fig. 1 is a flow chart of some embodiments of the information collection method of the present disclosure.

Fig. 2 is a flow chart of other embodiments of the information collection method of the present disclosure.

Fig. 3A is a schematic diagram of some embodiments of the information collection method of the present disclosure.

Fig. 3B is a schematic diagram of other embodiments of the information collection method of the present disclosure.

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of some embodiments of an SFC agent node of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of further embodiments of an SFC proxy node of the present disclosure.

Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of further embodiments of an SFC agent node of the present disclosure.

Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of some embodiments of the SFC of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

The technical scheme of the present disclosure is described in further detail below through the accompanying drawings and examples.

In order to solve the problem that the SFC-unware equipment cannot recognize the message based on the SFC protocol, RFC7665 introduces an SFC proxy node. The SFC proxy node unpacks the received SFC message, including separating the NSH message header from the payload part of NSH, and then sending the payload message to the SF node for processing through a local circuit (Local Attachment Circuit, including VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network, virtual local area network), IP-in-IP (IP Encapsulation within IP, IP-in-IP), L2TPv3 (Layer Two Tunneling Protocol-Version 3, third edition of two-layer tunneling protocol), GRE (Generic Routing Encapsulation, general routing encapsulation), vxLAN (Virtual Extensible Local Area Network, virtual expansion local area network), etc.). After the SF node processes, the updated payload is returned to the SFC proxy node, and the SFC proxy node encapsulates the new payload by using NSH header and forwards the encapsulated payload to the SFF node, and then the SFF forwards the encapsulated payload to the next SF node.

Since a large number of existing SF devices cannot be upgraded to support SFC protocol during the transition of network devices to SFC, a large amount of SF OAM information will be missed under the existing telemetric (telemetry) SFC OAM acquisition mechanism, resulting in no referenceability of the acquired OAM information.

A flowchart of some embodiments of the information collection method of the present disclosure is shown in fig. 1.

In step 110, the SFC agent node receives an OAM collection request from a first domain, triggering its operation to generate a first instruction. In some embodiments, the nodes in the first domain have the capability of supporting the SFC protocol, which may be referred to as SFC-ware nodes, and the first domain is the SFC-ware domain; the nodes in the second domain, which may be referred to as SFC-unware nodes, do not have the capability to support the SFC protocol, and the second domain is the SFC-unware domain.

In some embodiments, the OAM collection request is carried by an NSH message, e.g., in a header of the NSH message. In some embodiments, after receiving the NSH message, the SFC agent node parses the NSH message to determine whether the NSH message includes an OAM collection request. If the NSH message contains the OAM acquisition request, a first instruction which can be identified by the node of the second domain is generated.

In some embodiments, the first instruction is a code for a node in the second domain to run, and the node in the second domain can directly run the first instruction after obtaining the first instruction, to obtain OAM information.

In some embodiments, the first instruction is a global code of OAM requirement information in the related art, so that it is ensured that the node in the second domain can correctly operate the code without upgrading and changing the node in the second domain, and OAM information is obtained by operating the code. In some embodiments, the OAM information obtained by the node of the second domain is device OAM information of the node.

In step 120, the SFC agent node generates a first message according to the first instruction and the protocol of the second domain. In some embodiments, the SFC proxy node may add the first instruction to the payload field of the NSH packet, and encapsulate the payload field after adding the first instruction based on a protocol of the second domain, such as any one of VLAN, IP-in-IP, L2TPv3, GRE, or VxLAN protocol, to obtain the first packet. In some embodiments, the payload field refers to a field in the message from the beginning of the message to the end of the message.

In step 130, the SFC proxy node sends the first message to the node of the second domain. And after the node in the second domain receives the first message, extracting the data of the payload field, and running a first instruction code contained in the data to acquire OAM information. In some embodiments, the node of the second domain may feed back the collected OAM information to the SFC agent node via a payload field of a message sent to the SFC agent node.

Based on the mode in the embodiment shown above, the SFC proxy node can convert the OAM collection request based on the SFC protocol, which cannot be identified by the node in the second domain, into the instruction that the node in the second domain can identify and execute OAM information collection according to the identification result, so as to improve the integrity of the collected OAM information, improve the reference value of the OAM information, and further improve the accuracy of the analysis based on the OAM information.

In addition, based on the working logic of the SFC proxy node in the related art, a method may be adopted to extend the header (such as the VLAN, GRE, etc. mentioned above) used in the SFC-unware domain, and copy the OAM requirement information into the corresponding header on the SFC proxy node. However, this method requires that all protocols used by the SFC-unware domain redefine the extended header, and redefining and updating for each protocol results in high economic and labor costs and lengthy development and deployment cycles due to the large number of protocols used by the SFC-unware domain. The mode in the method does not need to upgrade equipment which does not support the SFC protocol, and can acquire OAM information of the equipment, compared with the mode of expanding the equipment protocol, the processing mode reduces the workload and the processing cost, and improves the deployment efficiency of realizing the SFC full-chain node OAM acquisition.

In some embodiments, as shown in fig. 1, the information collection method of the present disclosure may further include step 140.

In step 140, the SFC proxy node obtains OAM information fed back by the nodes of the second domain.

In some embodiments, the SFC proxy node may obtain the second packet fed back by the node in the second domain, and obtain the OAM information by extracting the payload field of the second packet. In some embodiments, the payload field further includes user data processed by a node of the second domain, and the SFC agent node identifies OAM information from the payload field. In some embodiments, OAM information may be extracted based on a predetermined identification or a predetermined field location.

Based on the method in this embodiment, the SFC proxy node can obtain OAM information fed back by the node of the second domain, thereby facilitating subsequent use.

In some embodiments, the information collection method of the present disclosure may further include step 150: the SFC proxy node encapsulates the OAM information according to the protocol of the first domain, and the encapsulated OAM information can be fed back to the nodes of the first domain according to the requirement. In other embodiments, it may also be sent to the server. In some embodiments, the OAM information may be encapsulated into other desired formats and forwarded to the corresponding nodes.

In some embodiments, the SFC proxy node may encapsulate the OAM information into a header of the NSH packet, and feed back the encapsulated NSH packet to the service function forwarding SFF node located in the first domain. In some embodiments, the user data of the second message payload field may be carried by the payload field of the NSH message, thereby ensuring that the interactive functionality of the user data is not affected. In some embodiments, the SFC proxy node may encapsulate only the identified OAM information into the header of the NSH packet without changing the content of the payload field of the second packet, so that the payload field includes the OAM information of the second domain node and the user data, thereby avoiding user data damage caused by deleting the OAM information of the payload field.

Based on the mode in the embodiment shown above, the message containing the OAM information of the second domain node received by the node in the first domain is an NSH message, and the carrying mode of the OAM information also accords with the SF protocol, so that the node in the first domain has no perception to the conversion process of the message, the OAM information acquisition flow of the existing SFC-ware node is not influenced, and the processing efficiency of the SFC-ware node is not influenced.

A flowchart of further embodiments of the information acquisition method of the present disclosure is shown in fig. 2.

In step 211, after acquiring the NSH message, the SFC proxy node extracts information in its header. In some embodiments, the NSH message may be from an SFF node of the first domain.

In step 212, the SFC proxy node determines whether the header of the NSH packet includes an OAM acquisition request, and if so, the SFC proxy node generates a first instruction. In some embodiments, the SFC agent node may pre-store a first instruction, and obtain the first instruction by reading information stored in the memory. In some embodiments, the first instruction may be executable code that instructs the node to gather OAM information.

In step 221, the SFC agent node adds the first instruction to the payload field of the NSH message.

In step 222, the SFC agent node generates a first message based on the data of the updated payload field encapsulated by the protocol of the second domain. The first message is a message based on a protocol that can be supported by the first domain.

In step 231, the SFC agent node sends the first message to the node of the second domain.

After the node in the first domain obtains the first message, the first instruction in the first message is found and operated by identifying the data in the payload field, the operation of collecting SF OAM is executed, and OAM information is generated. The node of the first domain places the generated OAM information in the payload field and sends the generated OAM information to the SFC agent node via a second message based on a protocol that can be supported by itself.

In step 241, the SFC proxy node obtains a second message fed back by the node of the second domain.

In step 242, the SFC proxy node extracts the payload field of the second message, and obtains OAM information carried in the payload field.

In step 251, the SFC agent node encapsulates the extracted OAM information into a header of an NSH message. In some embodiments, the SFC proxy node may feed back the encapsulated NSH message to the SFF node located in the first domain.

Based on the mode in the above embodiment, the SFC proxy node reconstructs the global code by using the OAM requirement information in the NSH header, so that the problem that the SFC unaware domain cannot identify the SF OAM requirement information is effectively avoided, the equipment in the SFC unaware domain is not required to be upgraded and modified, the workload and the processing cost are reduced, and the deployment efficiency for implementing the SFC full-chain node OAM collection is improved.

In some embodiments, the payload field of the first packet in the steps 221 and 222 may only carry the first instruction, and the original data carried in the payload field of the NSH packet obtained in the step 211 may be sent to the node of the second domain through the third packet. In some embodiments, the SFC proxy node may encapsulate the user data based on the protocol of the second domain to generate a third packet, and further send the third packet to the node of the second domain, so as to avoid missing processing of the user data.

In some embodiments, in the steps 241 and 242, the payload field of the second packet fed back by the node in the second domain may only carry OAM information acquired by the node in the second domain. The SFC proxy node also acquires a fourth message from the node of the second domain, wherein the load field of the message carries data processed aiming at the user data in the third message. Based on the mode, the data carrying the OAM information can be separated from the data packet carrying the OAM information, and the probability of data analysis errors is reduced.

A schematic diagram of some embodiments of the information collection method of the present disclosure is shown in fig. 3A.

Under the condition that the SFF node in the first domain needs to acquire SF OAM information of the SF node 33, an NSH message is sent to the SF node 33, and an OAM acquisition request is carried in a message header. The NSH message is shown at 301. The SFC proxy node 32 is located between the SFF node 31 and the SF node 33, and receives the message 301. The SFC agent node 32 performs code reconstruction on the test OAM collection request carried in the NSH header, and generates a code (referred to as a first instruction in the figure) that can be directly executed.

The SFC agent node 32 integrates the code with the first Payload data Payload1 of the original Payload field to form the second Payload data Payload2.

The SFC proxy node 32 repackages the Payload2 using the SFC-unwatered domain protocol, generates a message 302, and forwards it to the SF node 33.

After the SF node 33 parses the message 302, directly runs the code of the first instruction in the Payload2, so as to obtain OAM information of the SF.

The SF node 33 combines the acquired OAM information together with the processed user data into the third Payload data Payload3.

The SFC node 33 repackages the Payload3 using the SFC unwatered domain protocol, generates a message 303, and forwards it to the SFC proxy node 32.

The SFC node 32 receives and analyzes the message 303, encapsulates the OAM information in the Payload3 into the message header of the extended NSH message, generates a message 304, and feeds back the message 304 to the SFF node 31, thereby realizing that the SFF node 31 acquires the OAM information of the nodes in the SFC unware domain.

In some embodiments, as shown in fig. 3B, the SFC proxy node 32 may also use the code and the original first Payload data Payload1 as Payload2, and generate two packets 302 that are repackaged using the SFC-unware domain protocol, and send the two packets to the SF node 33. The SF node 33 processes the two messages respectively, and obtains OAM information for the message carrying the code of the first instruction; the user data is processed for the packet carrying Payload1, and then the OAM information and the user data are respectively used as Payload3, so as to generate a packet, and the packet is forwarded to the SFC proxy node 32. In the embodiment shown above, by converting the OAM collecting request into a code capable of being run to collect OAM, the problem that SF OAM requirement information cannot be identified in the SFC-unaware domain due to the fact that both communication parties need to define SFC OAM fields in advance is effectively avoided; the problem that a large number of protocol message heads need to be modified and expanded by nodes in an SFC-unware domain is avoided by carrying OAM demand information by using the load field, and low-cost and rapid popularization and application are facilitated.

A schematic diagram of some embodiments of the SFC agent node 41 of the present disclosure is shown in fig. 4.

The instruction generation unit 411 can receive an OAM collection request from the first domain, triggering its operation of generating the first instruction. In some embodiments, the first instruction is a code for a node of the second domain to run, and the node of the second domain can directly run the first instruction after obtaining the first instruction, and obtain OAM information by running the first instruction.

The first message generating unit 412 is capable of generating a first message according to the first instruction and the protocol of the second domain. In some embodiments, the first packet generation unit 412 may add the first instruction to the payload field of the NSH packet, and encapsulate the payload field after adding the first instruction based on a protocol of the second domain, such as VLAN, IP-in-IP, L2TPv3, GRE, or VxLAN protocol, to obtain the first packet.

The first message sending unit 413 can send the first message to the node of the second domain.

The SFC agent node can convert the OAM acquisition request which cannot be identified by the nodes in the second domain and is based on the SFC protocol into an instruction which can be identified by the nodes in the second domain and can execute OAM information acquisition according to the identification result, so that the OAM information of equipment which does not support the SFC protocol can be acquired without upgrading the equipment, the comprehensiveness of the acquired SF OAM information is improved, the reference value of the OAM information is improved, and the accuracy of analysis based on the OAM information is further improved.

In some embodiments, as shown in fig. 4, the SFC proxy node may further include an information receiving unit 414, capable of acquiring OAM information fed back by the nodes of the second domain. In some embodiments, the information receiving unit 414 may obtain the second packet fed back by the node in the second domain, and obtain the OAM information by extracting the payload field of the second packet. In some embodiments, the payload field further includes user data processed by the node of the second domain, and the information receiving unit 414 identifies OAM information from the payload field. In some embodiments, OAM information may be extracted based on a predetermined identification or a predetermined field location.

Such an SFC agent node can obtain OAM information fed back by the nodes of the second domain, thereby facilitating subsequent use.

In some embodiments, the SFC proxy node may further comprise an encapsulation unit 415 capable of encapsulating OAM information according to the protocol of the first domain. In some embodiments, the feedback unit 415 may encapsulate OAM information into a header of an NSH packet, and feedback the encapsulated NSH packet to the service function forwarding SFF node located in the first domain. In some embodiments, the user data of the second message payload field may be carried by the payload field of the NSH message, thereby ensuring that the interactive functionality of the user data is not affected. In other embodiments, the message encapsulated with the OAM information may also be sent to the server. In some embodiments, the OAM information may be encapsulated into other desired formats and forwarded to the corresponding nodes.

The SFC proxy node can enable the message which is received by the node of the first domain and contains the OAM information of the node of the second domain to be an NSH message, and the carrying mode of the OAM information also accords with the SF protocol, so that the node of the first domain does not sense the conversion process of the message, the OAM acquisition flow of the existing SFC ware node is not influenced, and the processing efficiency of the SFC ware node is not influenced.

A schematic diagram of an embodiment of an SFC agent node of the present disclosure is shown in fig. 5. The SFC proxy node includes memory 501 and processor 502. Wherein: memory 501 may be a magnetic disk, flash memory, or any other non-volatile storage medium. The memory is used for storing instructions in the corresponding embodiments of the information acquisition method above. Processor 502 is coupled to memory 501 and may be implemented as one or more integrated circuits, such as a microprocessor or microcontroller. The processor 502 is configured to execute instructions stored in the memory, so as to improve the comprehensiveness of the collected OAM information, and further improve the accuracy of analysis based on the OAM information.

In one embodiment, the SFC proxy node 600 may also include a memory 601 and a processor 602 as shown in FIG. 6. The processor 602 is coupled to the memory 601 through a BUS 603. The SFC proxy node 600 may also be coupled to external storage 605 via storage interface 604 to invoke external data, and may also be coupled to a network or another computer system (not shown) via network interface 606. And will not be described in detail herein.

In this embodiment, the data instruction is stored in the memory, and then the processor processes the instruction, so that the comprehensiveness of the collected OAM information can be improved, and the accuracy of analysis based on the OAM information can be improved.

In another embodiment, a computer readable storage medium has stored thereon computer program instructions which, when executed by a processor, implement the steps of the method in the corresponding embodiments of the information acquisition method. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that embodiments of the present disclosure may be provided as a method, apparatus, or computer program product. Accordingly, the present disclosure may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment, or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the present disclosure may take the form of a computer program product embodied on one or more computer-usable non-transitory storage media (including, but not limited to, disk storage, CD-ROM, optical storage, etc.) having computer-usable program code embodied therein.

A schematic diagram of some embodiments of SFCs of the present disclosure is shown in fig. 7.

The SFC agent node 71 is located between the nodes of the first domain and the second domain, and may be any of those mentioned above.

The node 72 of the first domain is capable of sending OAM collection requests to the nodes of the second domain through the SFC agent node. In some embodiments, the nodes in the first domain are capable of supporting the SFC protocol. In some embodiments, the nodes of the first domain comprise SFF nodes. In some embodiments, the OAM collection request may be carried by an NSH message, such as in a header of the NSH message.

The node 73 of the second domain is able to collect OAM information according to the first instruction from the SFC agent node and feed back to the SFC agent node. In some embodiments, the nodes in the second domain do not have the capability to support the SFC protocol.

In some embodiments, the node in the second domain is capable of extracting a payload field of the first message from the SFC proxy node, and when the first instruction is found to be in the payload field, obtaining OAM information by executing the first instruction, adding the OAM information to the payload field of the second message, and feeding back the second message to the SFC proxy node.

In some embodiments, the node in the second domain obtains the user data carried in the payload field of the first packet, and after processing the user data, carries the processing result through the payload field of the second packet, so that both the processing result and the OAM information for the data can be fed back through the second packet.

In other embodiments, the node of the second domain may further obtain a third message from the SFC proxy node, where the payload field of the third message carries the user data. The nodes in the second domain process the user data, load the processing result through the load field of the fourth message, and feed back the fourth message to the SFC proxy node, so that the data carrying the data is separated from the data packet carrying the OAM information, and the probability of data analysis errors is reduced.

In the SFC, based on the conversion of OAM acquisition requests of the SFC proxy nodes, nodes in the second domain can acquire and provide OAM information to be fed back to the first domain, the nodes in the second domain are not required to be upgraded, the comprehensiveness of acquiring OAM information of the SFC full chain is improved, the reference value of the OAM information is improved, and the accuracy of analysis based on the OAM information is improved.

The present disclosure is described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the disclosure. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flows and/or blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

Thus far, the present disclosure has been described in detail. In order to avoid obscuring the concepts of the present disclosure, some details known in the art are not described. How to implement the solutions disclosed herein will be fully apparent to those skilled in the art from the above description.

The methods and apparatus of the present disclosure may be implemented in a number of ways. For example, the methods and apparatus of the present disclosure may be implemented by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination of software, hardware, firmware. The above-described sequence of steps for the method is for illustration only, and the steps of the method of the present disclosure are not limited to the sequence specifically described above unless specifically stated otherwise. Furthermore, in some embodiments, the present disclosure may also be implemented as programs recorded in a recording medium, the programs including machine-readable instructions for implementing the methods according to the present disclosure. Thus, the present disclosure also covers a recording medium storing a program for executing the method according to the present disclosure.

Finally, it should be noted that: the above embodiments are merely for illustrating the technical solution of the present disclosure and are not limiting thereof; although the present disclosure has been described in detail with reference to preferred embodiments, those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that: modifications may be made to the specific embodiments of the disclosure or equivalents may be substituted for part of the technical features; without departing from the spirit of the technical solutions of the present disclosure, it should be covered in the scope of the technical solutions claimed in the present disclosure.

Claims

1. An information acquisition method, comprising:

generating a first instruction according to an operation, maintenance and administration (OAM) acquisition request from a first domain;

generating a first message according to the first instruction and a protocol of a second domain;

and sending the first message to a node of a second domain, so that the node of the second domain collects OAM information according to the first instruction and feeds back the OAM information.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

acquiring OAM information fed back by the nodes of the second domain;

and encapsulating the OAM information according to the protocol of the first domain.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first instruction is code for execution by a node of the second domain, the node of the second domain obtaining the OAM information by executing the first instruction.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the first instruction is executable code of OAM requirement information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the OAM collection request is carried over an NSH message.

6. The method of claim 1 or 5, wherein the generating a first message according to the first instruction and a protocol of a second domain comprises:

adding the first instruction to a load field of a network service header NSH message; encapsulating the data of the load field based on a protocol of a second domain, and acquiring the first message;

or (b)

The first instruction is used as the content of a load field, the data of the load field is encapsulated based on the protocol of a second domain, and the first message is obtained; the method further comprises the steps of: and encapsulating the user data of the load field in the NSH message based on the protocol of the second domain to generate a third message, and transmitting the third message to the node of the second domain.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the obtaining OAM information fed back by a node of the second domain includes:

acquiring a second message fed back by the node of the second domain;

and extracting the payload field of the second message to obtain the OAM information.

8. The method of claim 2 or 7, wherein the encapsulating the OAM information according to the protocol of the first domain includes: and packaging the OAM information into a message header of an NSH message.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein,

the nodes in the first domain have the capability of supporting a service chain SFC protocol; and

the nodes in the second domain do not have the capability to support the SFC protocol.

10. A service chain proxy node, comprising:

an instruction generation unit configured to generate a first instruction according to an operation maintenance management OAM acquisition request from a first domain;

a first message generating unit configured to generate a first message according to the first instruction and a protocol of the second domain;

and the first message sending unit is configured to send the first message to the node of the second domain so that the node of the second domain can acquire OAM information according to the first instruction and feed back the OAM information.

11. The node of claim 10, further comprising:

an information receiving unit configured to obtain OAM information fed back by a node of the second domain;

and the encapsulation unit is configured to encapsulate the OAM information according to the protocol of the first domain.

12. A service chain proxy node, comprising:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to perform the method of any of claims 1-9 based on instructions stored in the memory.

13. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer program instructions which, when executed by a processor, implement the steps of the method of any of claims 1 to 9.

14. A service chain, comprising:

the service chain SFC proxy node of any one of claims 10 to 12;

a node of a first domain configured to send an operation, maintenance and administration, OAM, collection request to a node of a second domain through the SFC agent node; and

a node of a second domain configured to collect OAM information according to a first instruction from the SFC proxy node and feed back to the SFC proxy node,

wherein the SFC proxy node is located between a node of the first domain and a node of the second domain.

15. The service chain of claim 14, wherein the nodes of the first domain comprise service function forwarding SFF nodes.

16. The service chain of claim 14, wherein the node of the second domain is configured to:

extracting a load field of a first message from the SFC proxy node;

acquiring the OAM information by running the first instruction carried in the payload field;

adding the OAM information into a load field of a second message;

and feeding back the second message to the SFC proxy node.

17. The service chain of claim 16, wherein the node of the second domain is further configured to:

acquiring user data carried by a load field of the first message, processing the user data, and carrying a processing result through the load field of the second message;

or (b)

Acquiring a third message from the SFC proxy node, wherein a load field of the third message carries user data; and processing the user data, carrying the processing result through a load field of a fourth message, and feeding back the fourth message to the SFC proxy node.