SYNCHRONIZED BACKUP OF AN OBJECT MANAGER GLOBAL DATABASE AS PART OF A CONTROL BLADE REDUNDANCY SERVICE

• US 20070073733A1
• Filed: 11/05/2006
• Published: 03/29/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Fortinet Inc.
• Inventors: Berenberg, Anna, Matthews, Abraham
• Granted Patent: US 7,539,744 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0233 Object-oriented techniques, for representation of network management data, e.g. common object request broker architecture [CORBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/085 Retrieval of network configuration; Tracking network configuration history
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0869 Validating the configuration within one network element
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0895 Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/10 Routing in connection-oriented networks, e.g. X.25 or ATM

Abstract

A system and method of managing a switch includes installing a switch having a plurality of processor elements, installing an operating system on each processor element, creating a system virtual router and configuring the processor elements from the system virtual router.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

configuring a switch management system;

managing the switch management system with an object manager over a distributed message layer of a network operating system (NOS), an instance of which runs on each processor element of a switch;

tracking management and configuration data with an object manager global database residing on a master control blade of a plurality of service blades of the switch; and

storing a replica of the object manager global database on a standby control blade of the plurality of service blades.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein tracking management and configuration data with an object manager global database includes updating the global database with data from a plurality of distributed local databases.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein storing a replica of the object manager global database on a standby control blade includes maintaining consistency between the object manager global database and the replica of the object manager global database.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said maintaining consistency between the object manager global database and the replica of the object manager global database includes updating the replica of the object manager global database responsive to a change in configuration of objects involved in message passing communications.

5. A method comprising:

executing a network operating system (NOS) on each processor element of a switch;

via the NOS, creating a distributed messaging layer channel among a dynamic set of control blades of a plurality of control blades of the switch that are present and intercommunicating in the switch;

maintaining master control blade management information, including an object manager global database containing information regarding and configuration of active virtual private networks (VPNs) within the switch, active virtual routers (VRs) within the switch, object groups within the switch and objects within the switch, on a master control blade of the dynamic set of control blades;

maintaining redundant master control blade management information, including a redundant object manager global database, on one or more standby control blades of the dynamic set of control blades by

performing bulk updates and flash updates to the redundant master control blade management information, the bulk updates being triggered by dynamic events, including peer up, peer down, master up and master down events, the flash updates being triggered by individual changes to the object manager global database, including creation or deletion of a virtual router;

each of the one or more standby control blades periodically performing a consistency check against the object manager global database; and

if the consistency check indicates one or more of a plurality of consistency rules has failed, then the standby control blade requesting a bulk update from the master control blade.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the plurality of consistency rules includes rules verifying one or more of the following conditions:

for every virtual private network (VPN) there is a unique ID within the switch;

for every virtual router (VR) there is a unique combination of a VPN ID and a VR ID;

every VR has a unique VR ID within its associated VPN;

for every object group there is a VR to which the object group belongs;

for every object there is an object group to which the object belongs;

every object has a unique object ID in the switch;

for each VPN, a value of a counter tracking a total number of VRs associated with the VPN is equal to an actual total number of VRs associated with the VPN;

for each object group, a value of a counter tracking a number of objects in the object group is equal to an actual total number of objects in the object group;

a total number of objects across all object groups is equal to a total number of objects across address spaces and is equal to a total number of objects in the switch;

a total number of objects in a sorted global list is equal to a total number of objects in a global hash and is equal to the total number of objects in the switch; and

for every object class in the switch, there is a corresponding entry in a class table.