Receiver-signaled entropy labels for traffic forwarding in a computer network

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a sender device from a receiver device, an advertisement, the advertisement including a set of entropy labels the receiver device is willing to process, wherein the sender device is an edge device in a core network and the set of entropy labels is sent to each edge router in the core network and the receiver device is an edge device in the core network, wherein the set of entropy labels are a set of random labels that facilitate load balancing in the core network by allowing the sender device to tag different flows with different entropy label values of the set of entropy label values, resulting in different label stacks for different flows;

receiving, at the sender device, a packet from a device in a local network to be forwarded to the receiver device with flow entropy;

in response to receiving the packet, selecting, by the sender device, a particular entropy label from the set of entropy labels in the advertisement for that receiver device to be inserted into the packet during forwarding, wherein the particular entropy label is one of the entropy labels that receiver is willing to process; and

transmitting the packet from the sender device to the receiver device with the selected particular entropy label.

2. The method as in claim 1 , wherein receiving the set of entropy labels comprises:

receiving the set of entropy labels via a routing protocol.

3. The method as in claim 1 , wherein receiving the set of entropy labels comprises:

receiving the set of entropy labels via configuration.

4. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the sender device and receiver device are ingress and egress provider edge (PE) devices, respectively.

5. The method as in claim 1 , wherein transmitting comprises:

forwarding the packet according to Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS).

6. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the entropy label in the transmitted packet is an entry within a label stack.

7. A method, comprising:

determining, at a receiver device, that the receiver device accepts flow entropy;

determining, at the receiver device, a set of entropy labels the receiver device is willing to process;

transmitting an advertisement from the receiver device to one or more sender devices, the advertisement including the set of entropy labels the receiver device is willing to process, wherein the one or more sender devices are edge devices in a core network and the set of entropy labels are transmitted to each edge device in the core network, and the receiver device is an edge device in the core network, wherein the set of entropy labels are a set of random labels that facilitate load balancing in the core network by allowing the one or more sender devices to tag different flows with different entropy label values of the set of entropy label values, resulting in different label stacks for different flows; and

receiving, at the receiver device, packets from the one or more sender devices with selected particular entropy labels that are selected from the set of entropy labels included in the advertisement, wherein the packets are packets received at the sender devices from one or more devices in a local network.

8. The method as in claim 7 , wherein the set of entropy labels are specific per sender device.

9. The method as in claim 7 , wherein transmitting the set of entropy labels comprises:

advertising the set of entropy labels via a routing protocol.

10. The method as in claim 7 , wherein the transmitting the set of entropy labels comprises:

communicating the set of entropy labels within an operations, administration, and management (OAM) flow.

11. The method as in claim 7 , wherein the one or more sender devices and receiver device are ingress and egress provider edge (PE) devices, respectively.

12. The method as in claim 7 , wherein receiving comprises:

receiving the packets according to Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS).

13. The method as in claim 7 , wherein the entropy label in the received packets is an entry within a label stack.

14. An apparatus, comprising:

one or more network interfaces to communicate with a computer network;

a processor coupled to the network interfaces and adapted to execute one or more processes; and

a memory configured to store a process executable by the processor, the process when executed operable to:

receive, as a sender device from a receiver device, an advertisement, the advertisement including a set of entropy labels the receiver device is willing to process, wherein the sender device is an edge device in a core network and the set of entropy labels is sent to each edge router in the core network and the receiver device is an edge device in the core network, wherein the set of entropy labels are a set of random labels that facilitate load balancing in the core network by allowing the sender device to tag different flows with different entropy label values of the set of entropy label values, resulting in different label stacks for different flows;

receive a packet from a device in a local network to be forwarded to the receiver device with flow entropy;

in response to receiving the packet, select a particular entropy label from the set of entropy labels in the advertisement for that receiver device to be inserted into the packet during forwarding, wherein the particular entropy label is one of the entropy labels that receiver is willing to process; and

transmit the packet to the receiver device with the selected particular entropy label.

15. The apparatus as in claim 14 , wherein the process when executed to receive the set of entropy labels is further operable to:

receive the set of entropy labels via a routing protocol.

16. The apparatus as in claim 14 , wherein the process when executed to transmit is further operable to:

forward the packet according to Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS).

17. An apparatus, comprising:

one or more network interfaces to communicate with a computer network;

a processor coupled to the network interfaces and adapted to execute one or more processes; and

a memory configured to store a process executable by the processor, the process when executed operable to:

determine, as a receiver device, that the receiver device accepts flow entropy;

determine a set of entropy labels the receiver device is willing to process;

transmit an advertisement from the receiver device to one or more sender devices, the advertisement including the set of entropy labels the receiver device is willing to process, wherein the one or more sender devices are edge devices in the computer network and the set of entropy labels are transmitted to each edge device in the computer network, and the receiver device is an edge device in the core network, wherein the set of entropy labels are a set of random labels that facilitate load balancing in the core network by allowing the one or more sender devices to tag different flows with different entropy label values of the set of entropy label values, resulting in different label stacks for different flows; and

receive packets from the one or more sender devices with selected particular entropy labels that are selected from the set of entropy labels included in the advertisement, wherein the packets are packets received at the sender devices from one or more devices in a local network.

18. The apparatus as in claim 17 , wherein the set of entropy labels are specific per sender device.

19. The apparatus as in claim 17 , wherein the process when executed to transmit the set of entropy labels is further operable to:

advertise the set of entropy labels via a routing protocol.

20. The apparatus as in claim 17 , wherein the process when executed to receive is further operable to:

receive the packet according to Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS).